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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24133210">Codename: Phoenix</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/pseuds/Anonymississippi'>Anonymississippi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Killing Eve (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Divergent, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Gone off the rails somewhere around 3x04 or 3x05, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of self-harm, and somehow despite all that a dash of, dark!eve, now I guess I gotta add</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:07:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,617</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24133210</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/pseuds/Anonymississippi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rise</p><p>OR:</p><p>Eve Polastri when she's not scared of anything.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>153</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>511</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Villanelle didn’t kill Niko.</p><p>It’s immediately obvious to Eve, but to anyone in MI6 who had even a passing knowledge of Villanelle’s MO, it would look utterly damning. Mo has already passed judgement, and he’d only glanced at the file. Carolyn is… restrained. As always. So it’s hard for Eve, who had been so much in her own head, so much in Villanelle’s head, to articulate with certainty that Villanelle had nothing to do with her husband’s murder, brutal and flashy as it was.</p><p>Former colleagues and her dwindling handful of friends had watched her unravel over the past six months, her sanity so compromised she nearly checked herself into rehab alongside Niko. Carolyn stares a beat too long; Jamie and Bear keep a wide berth. She goes back to the Catalan murder, the spice, the chalk—a connection, between Villanelle and… someone.</p><p>If asked how she knew, Eve would assert that the clues were all wrong: the bread-crumbs more like loaves leading to a bakery of conclusions, heavy-handed and much too neat, lacking all of the opportunistic artistry of Villanelle’s kills. Whoever killed Niko understood only a small part of Villanelle; and, clearly, knew nothing about Eve.</p><p>Which is not to say that seeing her husband of nearly fifteen years perish ten feet away from her was not… traumatizing seems almost too trite, given the collection of losses sustained over such a short time. There is an enormity to her grief the likes of which she cannot sustain.</p><p>She’ll never forget the initial surprise, the split-second confusion, when Niko, just as confused as she was, turned and waved at her. Then, sudden as lightning, something long and straight flew at the back of Niko’s neck. It’s a joke, a—a jolt—her brain… processing, her mouth trying for words, sounds, anything against travel-weary dehydration. Her stomach seized and her throat constricted. She fell to her knees, couldn’t even force herself across the dusty floor of the barn to be with him in his last moments.</p><p>Of course she fell. Of course she froze. What else could she do? How could she deal him the injustice of hovering over his broken body, her hands tight around his throat to keep it together… applying pressure to staunch the spurts of blood… what he would surely understand as, in his last moments, Eve’s hands around his throat as he faded away. It had been that way for nearly two years; Eve’s grip on reality slipping, her claws in Niko gripping all the harder. She held tight to her husband and the normality in which he delighted despite how unfit she was for that normal life she claimed to cherish. She held so tightly she choked the life out of him, his blood on her hands long before the pitch-fork shredded his carotid.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>She wasn’t ungracious; but a swift exit was the least she could do for him. She organized the funeral and repressed the feelings, sat far away from his family in the country cathedral. She cried, silently bereaved, while Niko’s mother wailed and the priest droned on in Polish platitudes. Niko’s family had never much cared for Eve. She was the reason he stayed in London, despite his teaching offer in Warsaw. She sat there, almost completely alone while the afternoon sun shone through St. Stanislaws’s stained-glass likeness, feeling the hatred radiating from those who knew him well and loved him in ways Eve never could.</p><p>The flight back to London was not a long one, but she had three gin drinks before touchdown and snapped at the flight attendant when she poured more soda than booze. She called an Uber and, once in the city proper, found an ATM and paid for a night in a cheap hotel within walking distance of an off license. It was only three days after Niko died, and she was already trudging back into the Bitter Pill offices, her newfound resolve for vengeance the only thing holding her together.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Catalan was like the murder in 1970s Russia, and now Niko’s murder was like many of Villanelle’s… or so it seemed. The time-gap suggested someone older, someone who knew Villanelle, so Eve did what she did best: she investigated. She asked questions. She hunted down the leads.</p><p>“I need to speak to Konstantin.”</p><p>She’d been in Carolyn’s house more in the past two weeks than she had in the entire previous year working for her, even on the Peele case. The atmosphere had shifted after Kenny’s death; the rooms had once seemed, if not bright in the cheery sense, then at least marginally well-lit. They were now swaddled in a haze of grey and gloom. Geraldine sniffled behind every corner that Eve turned, and Carolyn, ever the stubborn enigma, betrayed nothing. If it wasn’t for the expensive scotch she was offered nearly every time she showed up at the door, Eve would’ve just called her.</p><p>“I don’t know where he is,” Carolyn said.</p><p>Eve’s upper lip twitched, and she bit her tongue. Carolyn had the audacity to claim as much as she stared at the crime scene photo of Niko’s corpse, dappled with bright red blood and nestled awkwardly in the straw. They both sipped their drinks in silence. Eve, trying to distract herself so she wouldn’t yell; Carolyn… well, for all Eve knew, maybe she was drinking for the exact same reason. But then, after the burning had subsided:</p><p>“But you know how to get in touch with him.”</p><p>“He usually finds me,” Carolyn said, her tone clipped, her lilt ever-so-annoying. “I’m truly sorry for your loss Eve, but I can’t help you.”</p><p>“You won’t even try.”</p><p>“What good is it giving you false hope?” Carolyn said, which was so logically sound that only Eve’s irrational side could fault her for it. Considering her irrational side had been steering the majority of her decision-making for going on a year and a half, Eve still felt pissed beyond belief. “Where are you staying?”</p><p>“A friend’s,” Eve said, though she could hardly count Jamie as such for much longer. She needed a plan. A plan beyond vengeance. Even though that was all her tunnel vision would allow much of these days.</p><p>“Good. It’s good to have people you can lean on during difficult times.”</p><p>“Like Geraldine,” Eve said.</p><p>Carolyn finally looked away from the file, then took a gulp of scotch.</p><p>“Hmm, yes,” she said, closing the materials and handing them back over.</p><p>Nursing her drink, Eve turned the pages of Niko’s file, rushed to MI6 through a special favor that Carolyn had called in. But Eve only had so many special favors left, and it wasn’t like Niko’s death was tied to Kenny’s in anyway, at least on the surface. It was more due diligence on Carolyn’s part, to keep Eve actively engaged in Kenny’s case, by making the necessary concessions for a thorough look into Niko’s murder. Not that Carolyn had the sense to tell Eve that she was too close to the matter, to let the professionals handle it. Because she had done the very same with her son. Pot, kettle, and the boiling water scalding their hearts in the transition.</p><p>“Are you finished?” Carolyn asked.</p><p>Interesting question, Eve thought. Finished with what, exactly? Villanelle? The Twelve? MI6? Kenny’s killer? When would she ever, ever be disentangled from… all of this?</p><p>She threw back the rest of her scotch and grimaced, snatched the folder from the counter and shoved it in her bag.</p><p>“Very well,” Carolyn said, never one for tantrums. “I’ll show you out.”</p><p>“I got it.”</p><p>“I insist,” Carolyn said, marching after Eve despite her fury. They reached the door, stepped outside, and then Carolyn grabbed Eve by the arm.</p><p>“Listen, Eve, I didn’t want to mention this inside—“</p><p>She’s struck by how small she feels. Lowly, staring up at the imposing figure of Carolyn, as she’s stared up at Villanelle and Niko and even Bill, when he took the lead on “A Whole New World” at karaoke night. She knows she’s… short, but it’s not the physical lack of height that troubles her. There’s that shortage of influence, of power, that Eve is more concerned with. She knows how to use what little leverage she has, but in the wake of a life gone sour how will she ever be strong enough to put everything back together?</p><p>“—Konstantin comes to visit Geraldine,” Carolyn said. “Midday, usually. Just after the lunch hour. I’ve seen him leaving.”</p><p>“Why couldn’t you—“</p><p>“Geraldine doesn’t know I know about these visits,” Carolyn said. “I’d like to keep it that way.”</p><p>“Wh—why?” Eve asked. “Why is he visiting her?”</p><p>“Haven’t the foggiest,” Carolyn said. “Geraldine is… sensitive, if it wasn’t apparent, Eve. She would be all too easy to break.”</p><p>“And you wouldn’t put it past Konstantin.”</p><p>“I would put nothing past Konstantin,” Carolyn agreed. “If you need to see him, stick around a few more hours. But I’d rather you confront—”</p><p>“Interrogate.”</p><p>“Exactly, either before or after he comes to see Geraldine. She is—“</p><p>“Sensitive.”</p><p>“Indeed. Like I said,” Carolyn nodded, her handle on the door behind her. “I rather suspect he is up to no good, considering my daughter will not tell me what they discuss together.”</p><p>“He could just be comforting her. You know… since her brother died.”</p><p>“Konstantin?” Carolyn said. “Doubtful. Regardless, I hope he helps you.”</p><p>Eve nodded, pulled up her hood, and walked down the steps. She didn’t exactly have a car for a stake-out, but there was a Londis a few blocks over, so she could grab some snacks and wait at a bus stop. The waiting then the going then the stopping and the sprinting, from bus to office to plane to funeral to doorstep to bench, transient and incomplete, was so, so wearisome.</p><p>But what could she do? Stop? Walk away? And let the regret eat her alive slowly, the ever-wondering doing more damage than the split-second sessions of rage which… even though they streaked white-hot and violent across her nerves, invariably soothed the ache of the unknowing.</p><p>She needed to solve it.</p><p>Or it would haunt her forever.</p><p>Eve had already decided.</p><p>She’d kill someone by the end of this.</p><p>Or else herself. Then at least she could turn her brain off.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Where is Villanelle?”</p><p>Konstantin was in his customary blacks, his thick eyebrows bushy as bunny tails. He had a plastic bag in one hand and a momentarily shocked expression on his face as he rounded the corner to Carolyn’s street.</p><p>“Russia,” he said.</p><p>Eve had popped out from behind the gate of a posh house and planted herself right in his path. She’d only waited an hour and a half, and had clocked his lumbering gait from two blocks away. She was probably breathing a little heavily from making the loop down an alley to emerge before him undetected, but at least the burst of adrenaline had shaken her from her stupor at the bus stop… it was to be expected that her thoughts had meandered to buses, and all the stupid-stupid-stupid things she’d done on them. But a chase, even one as short and quick as hers with Konstantin, had led to an answer:</p><p>Russia.</p><p>Eve knew that Villanelle hated Russia, though. But even if Eve was prone to disbelief, the speed with which Konstantin responded made her want to believe Russia was exactly where Villanelle was, and had been, for at least three days.</p><p>“How long has she been there?”</p><p>“I don't know," he said, stooping down to catch her eye. "Why do you care?”</p><p>“I think someone is trying to hurt her,” Eve said.</p><p>And she hadn’t really put it all together, not until the words came out of her mouth: but someone wanted Eve angry at her. And angry Eve, with her connections and resources and the might of MI6, foisted upon an unknowing Villanelle. What does anyone get out of Eve being angry at Villanelle? Villanelle, who had been off the radar for nearly six months, and then, all of a sudden, back on her A-game, piles of bodies in just a couple of short weeks.</p><p>Villanelle pre-Eve, was efficient, and clever, without the flair added to kills just to try to impress her. Villanelle pre-Eve was… good, to be sure, and yet—</p><p>Eve knew she was a narcissist at heart, but something about that note just felt a little… desperate. Like Eve needed to see it, needed to connect it to Villanelle, needed to blame her for Niko… for everything…</p><p>“She’s working again, but you’ve been in London for weeks,” Eve said, before Konstantin could fire back. “Since Kenny’s funeral. I saw you. Other people have… seen you. Been talking to you.”</p><p>She soldiered on, because her mind was going a million miles a minute, and Konstantin was her only hope: “She—someone killed Niko, and left—left a note.”</p><p>
  <em>Was she gasping? Was she… was she breathing?</em>
</p><p>“They wanted… they wanted it to look like her. Wanted me to think it was her. When the pitchfork… when they… killed him… when he was bleeding out, I… I couldn’t get to him—“</p><p>“You were there?” Konstantin asked. “They killed him when you were—“</p><p>“They killed him as soon as I came,” Eve said, her chest rising and falling so quickly, too fast, too heavy for scotch at 8am and a large bag of crisps and half a pack of cigarettes at the bus stop and <em>god when was the last time she ate a vegetable</em>? When was the last time she went on a jog? Her chest hurts and her shoulder hurts and her heart feels like it’s about to explode. </p><p>“They wanted me to see it. To be so mad I… I don’t know. Hated her.”</p><p>“She shot you,” Konstantin said, bushy brows furrowed. “Don’t you already hate her?”</p><p>“I always hate her,” Eve said. “Just like… just like you always hate her.”</p><p>His gaze softened as the recognition swept him away; a confession without her really saying anything, and yet—</p><p>“Villanelle has been in Russia since Tuesday,” Konstantin answered. “At least... that's the last I heard from her. She should be safe there.”</p><p>“But is she working with—what, a new handler? There was the hit on the political agitator, some tech CEO, the composer… and then Krüger. That’s a high body count for… what? Two weeks? Someone’s got to be passing along the info for the jobs, because they need it done and they need it done fast. Do you think whoever she’s working with, whoever’s feeding her the info for the kills—do you think they’d manipulate her to keep her consistent?”</p><p>“Isn’t that what you did with Aaron Peele?”</p><p>Eve grumbled. “And we saw how well that turned out.”</p><p>“…do you ever stop thinking? Just for a minute?” Konstantin asked, his grocery bag knocking against his knee. He had a soft sort of stare that always looked a little weary and weighted, like his thirty plus years of lying and manipulation were finally catching up with him.</p><p>Eve looked down at the sidewalk, exhaled a large, exhausted breath, and finally responded. “No.”</p><p>Konstantin shook his head. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”</p><p>“I don’t care.”</p><p>“You can’t protect her if you’re dead.”</p><p>“If I’m dead, really dead this time, she’ll kill everybody else anyway. She won’t need protecting.”</p><p>Konstantin huffed, then started rooting around in his baggie. He shoved a package of chocolate biscuits into Eve’s arms.</p><p>“You need them more than me.”</p><p>“I really don’t,” Eve said, even if she had been thinking of bringing Jamie a small something since she’d have to head back to his flat anyway. Biscuits as a ‘thanks for the psychoanalysis’ gift didn’t seem appropriate, but she wasn’t in a position to be purchasing expensive thank-you presents for reluctant house hosts.</p><p>“Dasha.”</p><p>“Gesundheit.”</p><p>“What? No. Dasha. The handler. She’s with Villanelle now.”</p><p>“Dasha… last name?”</p><p>“That’s all I can give you. I cannot make it too easy—“</p><p>“Even if Dasha is messing with our girl?”</p><p>“<em>Our</em> girl?”</p><p>“You know what I mean,” Eve said, clutching the biscuits to her stomach.</p><p>Silence, for a moment, until Konstantin could take it no longer, shuffling from foot to foot, rubbing the back of his neck, awkwardly placing his bag on the ground.</p><p>“I am sorry about your husband,” he said, eventually.</p><p>Eve couldn’t reply; she welled up, nodded, and looked away.</p><p>“And just after your birthday, too.”</p><p>Eve croaked out a laugh, then seemed to catch herself, her fingers coming up to cover her lips. “How did you know that?”</p><p>“Villanelle. I saw her before she left for Russia. She told me it was your birthday.”</p><p>“…is that all she told you?”</p><p>“What? What do you mean?”</p><p>“Nothing, I—nothing,” Eve said, unable to conjure the words.</p><p>
  <em> I kissed her. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Has she said anything about that? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> About me? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> About how I slapped her on a moving bus? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> About how pissed I am at her? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> About that stupid teddy bear, or the fancy-ass cake? </em>
</p><p>“Last time I saw Villanelle,” Konstantin began, “she seemed very happy. She said it was because of your birthday, but she seems to think she is—how to say—getting a promotion.”</p><p>“A promotion?” Eve asked. “What does that mean?”</p><p>“These people, they are all the same,” Konstantin said cryptically. “But for some reason she is asking for more responsibility.”</p><p>“We both know she doesn’t work well with other people,” Eve said. “Why would they offer her that?”</p><p>Konstantin shrugged. “I do not know.”</p><p>“It doesn’t make sense,” Eve said. “Unless they’re just lying to her to keep her working. Again, the timeline… it feels like they need her a lot more than she needs them. Like something big is coming.”</p><p>“I couldn’t tell you.”</p><p>“You could,” Eve corrected. “But you won’t.”</p><p>He shrugged again and offered her half a grin, but Eve could already tell… he was done. The fact that he was so cooperative to begin with was a little unsettling. Either he really was worried about Villanelle, or Eve’s desperation had struck a cord. He squeezed her arm as he retrieved his bag and set off down the street, leaving her to weather the misty London streets with a package of chocolate biscuits, a head full of half-baked theories, and a gaping, agonizing hole in her heart.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Later, much later, but Eve didn’t care.</p><p>She headed back to Carolyn’s place.</p><p>(Konstantin had made it too easy).</p><p>Carolyn opened the door, a bottle of booze already in hand.</p><p>“Tell me everything about Dasha Disran.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Up for a game?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dasha Disran wore a velour track suit, monogrammed, in golds and muddy browns. She was petite, but in a different fashion than Eve; slim and taught despite her age, stare so very dark in the neon reflections of the bowling alley. Eve looked up at the monitor above Dasha’s lane—272. A very good score. Eve couldn’t beat her. Though, that wasn’t exactly the objective.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eve Polastri.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dasha rolled her shoulders back and stuck her pointy chin out. She threw a cursory glance around the space, not so crowded for a random Wednesday afternoon. Eve clocked her glances: exits first, then at faces, the bowling bag on the chair beside her, and finally, back to Eve.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So interesting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve had seen Villanelle do it before, when she walked into a room. Assessing, but subtly. Likely a learned skill, the sweep of her gaze could not have taken more than a few seconds. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve tilted her head to the side, curious. The cases did not quite… mesh with the body before her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just like Villanelle, just like the Ghost, there was a pattern to Dasha's kills through the 70s and 80s. One flight from Heathrow to Barcelona found Eve solving five cold cases easily attributed to Dasha, if one had simply connected the dots. The links were bright as the neon stripes along the walls, constellations of clues overlapping to form one gigantic murder map that Eve could read so, so easily. She felt like she’d cracked a secret language, the sole speaker of a dead vocabulary, doing her best to translate to non-native speakers like Carolyn, or Bear, or Mo, or Jamie. She felt delighted by the knowledge; by the exclusivity of the lexicon. As far as the investigation was concerned, she was sad it had to end. As far as the kill was concerned, however…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t feel anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you might win,” Eve said, back to her initial question. “I’m not very good at bowling. But you seem to play here often. Every Monday and Wednesday since 2016, in fact.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dasha’s cheek twitched.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course, maybe you just reminisce about good times in bowling alleys,” Eve continued. “What was it—Kiev, ’81? He was easily six feet, I have no idea how long you had to keep his head in that ball return.” Eve side-eyed the accelerator, thinking of how the man’s chin had worn away, how the conveyer belt had pelted ball after ball against his crumpled skull. It was… inventive, to say the least. Something Villanelle might’ve come up with. Hell, something Villanelle might have <em>studied,</em> for all Eve knew about the inner workings of the Twelve.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve still… didn’t feel anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you want?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Dasha. Right.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I need to find Villanelle,” Eve said. Dasha’s shoulders seemed to drop down only a millimeter, some small relief.  “She left me a note, recently.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then why you come here?” Dasha asked, flapping her arm about the space. “To me? Go find her.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Breadcrumbs,” Eve said, moving over toward the rack of balls beside the seats in Dasha’s lane. She even hefted one, then another, finding the lightest of the selection, before turning back to Dasha. “The agitator in Catalan. Just like the gymnast in Russia. In the 70s. Your gym, in fact.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dasha made a <em>pfft</em> sound, but Eve saw the clench of the jaw, the square bulge in one pocket. Wondered how badly Dasha needed a cigarette at the moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They had no suspect.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But you don’t have to have a suspect to know who did it,” Eve said with an eye roll. She placed the ball in the caddy of lane ten, where Dasha was set up, and moved with ease towards the controls, adding another player to the electronic display above Dasha’s lane. She found the keyboard and started typing. “Breadcrumbs, Dasha. You’ve got flair. Always have—Kiev in ’81. Mykonos, ’79. Bratislava, Dubrovnik. All very entertaining, but so is she. Maybe let her be original again, hmm? Copy-cat doesn’t suit her.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve stuck the tip of her tongue out as she typed, wondering when the guilt would hit her. Wondering when she would feel like vomiting again. She didn’t wonder if she could stop now; didn’t take one second or one word back. She looked at Dasha, studied her kills on the plane over, and knew what she had to do. Konstantin had made it so simple. Villanelle, of course, had made it so simple. Carolyn and Bill and Kenny and Niko… it all just came so easily.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve didn’t feel anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“d-e-r… Kill Commander?” Dasha asked, zipping her track suit up. “What is that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just a little nickname,” Eve said with a smile, shrugging out of her overcoat. “Oksana gave it to me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>That did it.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dasha took two steps back toward the ball caddy, and she frowned immediately. “Why come all the way here for her, eh? She said she… took care of you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s a shit shot, you know,” Eve said. “Shot Konstantin, too, and he’s still walking around. Been doing something shady up in London for the past few weeks. Missing millions, and all that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” Eve said, tone almost airy, feeling bright, electric, neon.  “Your turn first.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not playing with you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, why not? I’ve already told you you’ll beat me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t care about beating you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then tell me where Villanelle is, and I’ll be on my way.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t it be easier though, for you?” Eve said. “I need to find her. She’ll probably kill me, you know. If I show up unannounced. Can’t you hear her? <em>That’s very rude, Eve.</em>” Her accent was shit, but Dasha looked a little dazed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t you feel…” Dasha paused, her mouth moving to find the words. “Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, right now?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Eve shook her head. “I think this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dasha didn’t stay. It wasn’t like the movies, where the evil villain waxed poetic over her devious plan while the hero bided her time, trying to find some means of escape. Of course, Eve was the one planning murder, though she certainly wouldn’t put it past Dasha. Her bowling ball stowed, her gloves tucked away, and her gaze set for the door, Dasha brushed past Eve, knocking into her shoulder.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do not follow me, or I will kill you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fair enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Near the entrance of the bowling alley, Dasha ducked into the locker room to return her bag, shoes, gloves, and towel to her respective storage locker. Eve knew she would store her things there, because the illegally subpoenaed CCTV footage from the bowling alley had shown her Dasha’s pattern every Monday and Wednesday for the past three months.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Arrive, take her key to the locker room, retrieve her bowling supplies, check-in with Ramón, the afternoon attendant, and head to Lane 10. Once a month, Dasha took her bowling bag home. Eve supposed it was to wash her rag, or shine her shoes, or rub grease or whatever onto the bowling ball—hell if Eve knew. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wasn’t much of an athlete. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course, Dasha had taken her materials home last week, so she’d be stashing them away this week. It was simply routine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dasha would remove the storage locker key from her front left pocket. She was left-handed, interestingly enough, which was one of the links in Dasha’s kills no one else had picked up on. It also altered the slope of her handwriting—<em>Still got it</em>—even though it had been made to look like Villanelle’s. Eve knew that Villanelle was right-handed. She’d held a gun in her face enough times for her to be certain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once Dasha removed the storage locker key, she would take her small purse out and replace it with the gym bag. Then, she would remove her street shoes, place them on a bench, sit on that bench, and then begin to untie her bowling shoes. She would reach for the disinfectant spray on the shelf by the frosted window, and squirt three pumps of freshener into each shoe, approximately twelve inches away from her face as she sat on the bench. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The twelve inches was key. It helped Eve determine the potency.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once she had sprayed her shoes and was laced back into her trainers, Dasha stowed her bowling shoes in the locker and inserted the key into its slot, clicking the tumblers in place and securing her belongings until her next return to the lanes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was all so beautifully methodical. Routine, and predictable. Like movements on the bar or the beam, brilliantly honed to efficiency. 10/10.<br/></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve made nice with Ramón at the front desk, feigning interest in a women’s league tournament that they had a flyer for, <em>somewhere</em>, Ramón insisted. As he rummaged about for it Eve kept her eyes on the upper left corner of the CCTV display behind Ramón’s desk, which rotated from eight different security camera angles, one of which included the locker room. Dasha was going through her motions, key, lock, bag away, shoes off, disinfectant sprayed, set aside, begin to tie the laces—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Perfect, gracias, Ramón,” Eve said. “Oh, and there is—<em>cómo se dice</em>—toilet clog? En el baño?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Que?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Water and shit,” Eve lied, scrunching up her face. “Everywhere.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A dios mío,” Ramón huffed, stalking toward the back for a plunger and a mop.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve watched him leave, and watched as Dasha swayed on the bench, clocking the seconds as they ticked by on the bottom corner of the CCTV. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve had worn a hat inside, had noted some of the cameras, but it wasn’t really about evasion, at this point. MI6 unofficially had her back. Or else a lawsuit was headed their way, if Eve really wanted to follow Hugo's lead and press the issue with Rome. Plus, death didn’t seem quite so awful after all of this. She looked straight up at the camera, flipped it off, then held up her pointer finger, and then the number two. Maybe the message would stupefy the authorities. Maybe the message would go to exactly who needed to see it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve looked again at the recording in the locker room, and Dasha was leaning heavily against the bench. She heard Ramón gasp at the clog and flood of water pouring out of the sink from the ladies room that Eve had sabotaged earlier. Eve smiled. Picked up the first place trophy from the women’s league championships, and walked toward the locker room. She placed a hospital mask over her face before stepping inside and shutting the door behind her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dasha was immobile and still on the bench, her fingers on her lips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Y-you,” Dasha said. “What have you done, you piece of—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Whack.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The base of the trophy landed true at the back of Dasha’s skull. It was like the tee-ball games she used to watch with her father, back home in Connecticut. A little target, perfectly immobile, waiting to be obliterated by an overeager five-year-old. Of course, Eve was a lot closer to fifty than to five, but that didn’t make her any less eager. And with a concentrated aerosol dose of saxitoxin, Dasha was just as immobile as a Little League tee. Dasha collapsed on the floor, but Eve didn’t have all day.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She grabbed her by the arms and dragged her limp and groaning form to side of the room, shoving her head against the wall full of shelves of disinfectants, photos of past league championships, and extra bowling balls.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve pressed her knee into Dasha’s chest and yanked her chin up so she’d look her in the eyes. The sun shone through the frosted windows and cast a lovely light against the lockers, shimmering over the pair as Eve squeezed the woman’s face and rested all of her body-weight onto her hitching, gasping chest. Eve pulled her mask down with her free hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“<em>Still got it</em>, do you?” Eve asked bitterly, and spat on Dasha’s face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I—eh—I—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“<em>Take care of me</em>?” Eve repeated Dasha’s words from earlier. “Don’t think so. Maybe now you get why she likes me so much.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a lynch pin on the shelving unit holding the bowling balls in place on the rack. Eve had checked it earlier, before she’d clogged up the bathroom. She pulled it, and watched the first bowling ball fall more than a meter off of its place on the shelf, and smash against Dasha’s upturned face. Another fell, and then another hit it, like too many pinballs moving at once, the pedals unable to keep up and knocking the weighted spheres into each other, crunching hideously.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve looked down and saw Dasha’s fingers curl, even as her eye drooped wet and purple out of its swollen socket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve picked up a pink bowling ball and struck her head, once, twice, third time’s the charm. Blood spluttered on her turtle neck and against the wall of windows, but it mainly seeped into the lime green zig-zag pattern of industrial carpeting on the floor underfoot. Funnily enough, the carpet reminded her of the atrocious upholstery patterns on London buses, usually dark with some strange, nonsensical pattern of a neon blue or highlighter yellow spatter for contrast. Even as blood pooled on the carpet below her, all she thought about was a London bus, and the overwhelming sense memory of Villanelle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve picked up her coat, took Dasha’s phone, and pressed the dead woman's still thumb against the home button. Eve typed as she walked, briskly, changing the pin code to 1-2-3-4, and removing the thumbprint lock. There was a side alley. She had arranged for a taxi to pick her up there at 16:00. It was now 16:05, and the taxi idled in the one-way beside garbage containers and puddles of muck. She slipped in the backseat, removed some disinfectant wipes from her pockets, and proceeded to clean her hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Parc Central de Nou Barris, por favor,” Eve asked, and the taxi drove away.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Outside, after the taxi, the air felt so much fresher. It was chilly but not cold, so Eve removed her overcoat and got lost on one of the paths in the park. She noted the way no one really paid attention to her as she moved. They were lost, beautifully, in their own affairs. She caught the eye of a middle-aged gentleman with gray at the temples and a handsome cleft chin, sipping from a water bottle as he straddled a street cycle. She felt brave enough to smile when he dipped his head at her. Moved along her way, feeling the wet stain of blood against her stomach.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Marvelous.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>People just really didn’t care.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Some kids were playing footy on a designated pitch, and two young, fit mothers pushed strollers as they jogged and chatted, their ponytails bobbing in time like synchronized swimmer limbs. Eve steered round crowded fountains where teenagers loitered with ice cream and cigarettes in hand, and passed rainbow mosaics in the sidewalks that shimmered as the sun sank lower toward the horizon. She’d only been to Spain once, for a conference, and hadn’t had the time to explore. When she and Niko were first married, they made lists of mainland destinations for weekends away, and checked off a number of hot spots. But feelings tempered, routine established, and resentments grew, so European getaways didn’t seem important as time pressed on. Of course when it’s new, and fresh, you have all the time in the world. But after more than a decade together…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve stutter-stepped and almost dropped her backpack as two kids flew past on their skateboards, not even sparing a yell over their shoulders as they zoomed away. Half of her wanted them to crash and skin their knees bloody and grainy in the gravel; the other half of her hoped they never had to stop for anything in their way, ever.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She sat down at the edge of a fountain and pulled out Dasha’s phone. Villanelle had only been active for about three weeks now, so it didn’t take long for her to scroll back and find what she needed. They texted in English, per Villanelle’s insistence. Her fee was… exorbitant, but Eve knew that already. There were some nitty-gritty details in the chats that were surprising, sounding so corporate and banal in comparison to the exotic quality of the job. An updated physical, for the organization. Various names and dates of birth, in more locations than Eve could count, to be packaged and delivered with passports, international I.D.’s, driver’s licenses, etc., with a drop spot indicated by coordinates designated by latitude and longitude. Finally, finally, past a photo or two of Villanelle’s most recent clothing purchases, and beyond a link to helium tank prices, Eve found an address. She quickly navigated to Google maps to see what she was looking for, and then, she headed for the edge of the park.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She used Dasha's phone to call an Uber for the fifteen minute drive. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once in the back of the car, Eve started typing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hello. Are you at home?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Seemed safe enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve did a few quick searches on her own phone, trying to find a take-out place that was near Villanelle’s villa. She was about to set an order and tell the driver to change directions, when Dasha’s phone pinged.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Short. No emojis. No pithy comeback, as seemed her style with Dasha from previous conversations. Eve couldn’t know if Dasha herself had a key, so tried to word her message openly:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I am coming to see you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The three dots appeared immediately.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No. Not tonight.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Three more dots, no message…then three more… but nothing came through. Dasha was straightforward, and Eve didn’t really have it within herself to elaborate, so… she just text the truth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>We need to talk.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, sorry,” Eve said to the driver. “Lo siento, uh—hablas Inglés? Can we, uh, change directions? I want to pick up some food I just ordered.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Dónde?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Here, I’ll do it on the phone.” Eve pointed at her phone in the rearview, then typed away in the app, sparing the driver her pathetic attempts at Spanish. It took her a minute to place an order, confirm Dasha’s payment info, and reset the navigation for her driver to the restaurant. She glanced at the matching phone in a holder on the dashboard, and everything seemed to update okay.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she looked back down, there was finally a message.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Just so you know, I’m in a really shitty mood.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve smiled, and another message came through, including an emoji this time:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Will you bring me some ice cream?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Also… uhm, is there an ice cream shop nearby?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The driver glanced up at her in the rearview, clearly exasperate. “Si,” he said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The rest of the drive, the take-away payments and ice cream selection (which ended with three different options because she didn’t know which Villanelle preferred), took absolutely no time at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before Eve knew it, she was pressing against the gate to the villa and walking through a gorgeously landscaped garden in the early hours of twilight. She squeezed her overcoat under her armpit as she felt the plastic and twine handles of her bags dig into her fingers. She jostled everything into one hand so she could knock on the door. Arms loaded down with take away, exhaustion, and Villanelle on her mind, it almost felt like home.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A few seconds passed, but no one answered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She knocked again, because she—she couldn’t just go in, could she? Is that something Dasha would’ve done? She pressed her fingers against the latch, and it gave on the first try. Music was playing from a back room somewhere, which might explain why Villanelle didn’t hear the knocking.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Did Villanelle always leave her door unlocked?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Was she just as careless as Eve?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well, Villanelle didn’t really need to keep her door locked. That would be one unlucky home invader, to break into an assassin’s villa.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve turned toward the direction of the music, but stumbled across the kitchen first. Charming, and not nearly as large as most kitchens, given that this place was still located within the city. But Eve found the freezer soon enough, shoved some vodka and frozen veggies and ready-meals out of the way and made room for Villanelle’s ice cream. She took some sick pleasure in knowing that Villanelle didn’t make pizzas or chop stir-fry from scratch, seeing the frozen veg and boxed items. The confidence she oozed was always something of a show, as far as Eve was concerned. It was simply a matter of finding a weakness, or, no, not quite a weakness… she had always wanted to understand Villanelle. Her talents, as well as her clumsiness, if she ever exhibited any. Her triumphs, her missteps. If Eve could put even half of the pieces of Villanelle together, she might just figure out why she felt the same things.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Or… why she didn’t feel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After seeing Dasha’s blood on the dated carpet of the locker room, all black and slow like sticky tar on a highway, she expected to feel… relief, maybe? Satisfaction? Pride?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’d avenged her husband, but she hardly felt noble.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She hardly felt… anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve started unpacking the take away boxes and searching for silverware, moving as if this was completely expected of her, as if Villanelle wouldn’t flip her shit and take a butter knife to her throat. She’d die from the pressure first, her trachea crushed under Villanelle’s forearm, before she died of a blade so blunt. But she’d done what she came to do, and thought it would only be polite to drop in on Villanelle while she was here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After all, it wasn’t everyday she got to travel to Barcelona. It wasn’t everyday she had the upper hand. Or killed someone. Or charged take-out orders and exorbitant Uber tips to the Apple Pay account of the person she just murdered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finding forks, knives, napkins, plates, glasses, the works, Eve set two places and began heaping food onto her plate, too impatient to wait for Villanelle to come down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She found a dusty bottle of red and didn’t even bother to look at the label. It was taking everything in her not to pull out a cigarette right that second, but the rumbling in her stomach would not subside. She thought back to Dasha’s fractured face, wondered if her neurons had already stopped receiving signals by the time she was on the floor. At least she saw the ball coming. Eve wished she knew, in that split-second between dropping the death blow to Dasha’s head, and the stare she’d leveled down at her still eyes, if she felt any fear. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve didn’t feel the need to vomit, not like she had after Raymond. It was… different. Almost like her visit to the morgue with Carolyn all those months ago, when she suddenly found herself ravenous and craving a cheeseburger. Murder was hungry work, which explained why Villanelle ate the way she did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve was on her seventh garlic shrimp when Dasha’s phone pinged.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Are you coming with my ice cream?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve swallowed her shrimp, buttery, savory, and washed the bite down with a gulp of wine. She took one more breath, then yelled, “KITCHEN!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The music, a mix of 80s pop ballads and glam metal, quieted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I said kitchen!” she tried again, scooping up some quinoa and capers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The music went silent.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve chewed, peeled the tail off another shrimp.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Heard footsteps.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Took a sip of wine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stared at her plate.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tried not to smile, when she heard the gasp.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then tried not to frown, at the gun in her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle was not prepared, and Eve thrilled at the notion. Clad in a pink floral robe, her hair down, her face clear of makeup, she looked… very young. Maybe not so young, since she was holding a gun in hand, and her lips were parted into a perfect little oval of confusion. Eve performed a quick scan, and smirked at her fuzzy socks. There were foxes on them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you slide around on this tile like Tom Cruise?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle blinked, taking a step closer into the kitchen. “What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like <em>Risky Business</em>?” Eve elaborated. “The movie?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I, uh…” Villanelle looked at the spread on the kitchen table, and noted the empty place setting set opposite Eve. “I haven’t seen it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I mean, it’s worth it just for that scene. Kind of iconic,” Eve said. “Do you want some dinner?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I mean you could probably eat better without the gun in your hand, you know. A little cumbersome with the utensils.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle’s lips twitched, and her head tilted ever so slightly to the left. Eve speared another shrimp, and waved her free hand across the bar.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“By all means.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll sit at my own table if I want to,” Villanelle returned, petulant. “I just haven’t decided yet if I’m going to shoot you, yet.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Since that went so well for you last time? Better aim for the head,” Eve said, lightly. “Ice cream’s in the freezer, by the way.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle huffed, dropping her arm and stomping over towards the refrigerator. She took stock of her options and ended up with some Spanish equivalent of Rocky Road, expertly maneuvering a spoon around her gun while maintaining a solid grip on the trigger.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can shoot you in the head and eat ice cream at the same time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve scoffed, then reached for the bottle and poured another glass of wine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle heaved a long-suffering sigh, “Sure, just help yourself!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I brought you ice cream.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It would take a hundred ice creams to pay for that bottle.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Which is why I always buy the cheap shit,” Eve finished her pour, rolling the lip of the bottle to catch the last few drops. “Can’t tell the difference.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle eventually put the gun aside, within reaching distance, but her focus had shifted more immediately to her ice cream. She ate straight out of the carton.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know that’s not very sanitary,” Eve said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why, do you want some?” Villanelle grinned, and Eve could almost tell where this was going. “It’s not like your mouth hasn’t been on mine before.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She almost wished she could blush, but at this point, that kiss on the bus was lifetimes away. She remembers the pain in her neck, craning upwards, and the slamming of her heart against her ribcage more than she does the taste of Villanelle. She remembers the smell, but it gets muddled when she thinks about the odor of London public transit. The villa doesn’t even smell like the perfume Villanelle wore that day. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve’s just got a mouthful of garlic and the tang of a balsamic drizzle and red wine on her palette. The meal overwhelms her more than Villanelle does; it settles her stomach and the light-headedness that came after her earlier encounter, and now, she’s starting to feel full and sleepy. She wonders, absently, if this is some sort of weird shock response: instead of her adrenaline firing on all cylinders, she just… shuts down. She doesn’t want to ruminate on what her body’s felt like, shit and sore and numb for the past six months, or how she still feels that way, even now. Her shoulder twinges. Has hurt, every morning for the past six months when she’s tried to pull a shirt on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But with Dasha?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After hefting a bowling ball over her head multiple times?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It didn’t even sting.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She only feels a shadow of rage now; nothing so all-consuming as her disgust on that bus ride. Everything has… tempered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For now, at least.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I walked into that one,” Eve finally said, raising her glass an inch. “Touché.” She took a sip, groaned a little, and pushed back from the side of the table, gathering her plate. “You sure you don’t want any?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Villanelle said. “Thank you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve turned, gathered her plates and utensils, and headed for the sink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How was Russia?” she asked conversationally, rolling up her sleeves to wash the dishes. She twisted her head over her shoulder as she heard Villanelle drop her spoon. When she emerged from below the bar, her eyes grew wet and glassy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That bad, huh?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do—how—what did Konstantin say?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I haven’t talked to Konstantin. I was just asking,” Eve said, returning to her task. “I know you normally hate Russia, that’s all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve continued sudsing her sponge, scrubbing the tines of the fork, the handle of the spoon, the surface of the plate. Villanelle appeared beside her, dishrag in hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s just these few things,” Eve said. “I got it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I will help,” Villanelle said. “You did bring me ice cream, after all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hmm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eve?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve passed the fork over to Villanelle, who carefully polished the handle before placing it gently back into the cutlery drawer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why do you have blood on your arms?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve looked down at her shirt, and the scrunched-up sleeves at her elbow. There were some dried droplets on her forearms she hadn’t really had time to wipe away as she legged it out of the bowling alley and into the side street, the taxi, the park. It was bizarre, again, how no one seemed to care what happened to anyone. She could be murdered now, murdered tomorrow, and if she was lucky, someone would find her body in a few hours, after it had been picked over by rats in the street.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…I killed Dasha,” she said, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She passed Villanelle the plate, but Villanelle wouldn’t take it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…what?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I killed her. At the bowling alley today.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The news of Dasha’s death came with less shock than Eve’s surprise appearance in her kitchen. There was no <em>O</em> of confusion on Villanelle’s lips, no real crack along the lines of her face, no spark in her eye, no tears, no reaction. Just… blank.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It comforts Eve, to a degree.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m like you, now.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve doesn’t remember everything about Rome—some pieces she’s certain she’s repressed beyond recollection, but she remembered her words:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m not afraid of anything.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How did you do it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Saxitoxin, in the aerosol container she uses to spray in the bowling shoes. Ridiculously easy to get working in a Korean kitchen. High concentrations can paralyze nerve endings in sixty seconds.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle’s eyes grew wide.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve used saxitoxin before.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In the perfume, yes, I remember,” Eve said. “But that was just to immobilize her, slow her down. I followed her to the locker room and hit her with a bowling trophy. Seemed fitting, the whole… Olympics, thing. Then, I dragged her to the edge of a rack of bowling balls, and dropped one on her head.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eve—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Must’ve gotten some blood on my sweater,” Eve looked down at her arms and the dark stains on her abdomen. She probably shouldn’t wear it again, which was a shame. It was one of her favorite turtle necks. “Can I use your shower?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You—yes, yes of course,” Villanelle left the plate in the sink. Eve reached for the dish towel, but Villanelle didn’t let go. “How did you know how to find her? How… how did you know who she was?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I found you, didn’t I? In Paris, in London… I have a very specific skill set, it seems.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And expanding.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t plan to make a habit out of it,” Eve said, finally extracting the towel from Villanelle’s hands. She started rubbing the material over her fingers, her wrists, wondering if it could ever wipe away all the blood. “Shower?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come, let me show you,” Villanelle said, touching fingers to her arm. “You can leave the towel.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Just found out some spoilery things for 3x06 that pretty much chucks any accuracy with this fic out the window but whatever!!! Eve's gone dark and I love it! Let Sandra murder someone again!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>the entire show exists so these two women can end up alone in a room together - pwb, season one (or something like that)</p>
<p>these chicks finally talk (cry) it out</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Can I stay here tonight?” Eve asked, toweling off her hair as she exited the bathroom. “Villanelle?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve found her back in the living quarters of the villa, all arches and columns and frescos and plush antique furniture. Still chic as shit, even if it wasn’t Paris. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was situated on the couch, back propped against an armrest, laptop humming as her eyes scanned the screen. She had half a tea biscuit sticking out of her mouth, and a steaming mug of something on the coffee end table behind her. Eve thought she heard the final strains of <em>Candle in the Wind</em> tinkle out of the computer speakers, but Villanelle muted the song before she could be sure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hmm?” Villanelle asked around her biscuit, before it fell out of her mouth and into her lap once she looked up at Eve. “Oh, you are… in… pajamas?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve stared down at herself. Her absolutely ratty UCONN alumnus t-shirt hung down to her thighs, the hem unraveling on the left side and one hole torn along the seam of her right sleeve. It was her damn favorite t-shirt and she knew she was going to want to wear it after she—well, after.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I asked if I could crash here,” Eve said. “And it’s hardly pjs, but I don’t like how that sounded like a question.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How do you sleep in that? It is old and gross.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For once, Eve wasn't feeling particularly combative; she let the towel droop as she dropped her arm, wincing a little against her soreness. The collar at the back of her neck was damp and cool, and her hair had finally lost its sleeping-in-an-office odor. There had been so many body scrubs and soaps and lotions on the counters of the bathroom she could hardly pick, but it felt nice to smell something other than the metallic tang of iron.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you okay?” Villanelle asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I'm fine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle’s gaze swept over her, all five-foot-four inches with a grody college tee and no pants, but she didn’t even crack a joke.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There are two guest rooms upstairs,” Villanelle said, returning her attention to the screen. “Pick one.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Eve said, balling the towel up in her hands. “I’ll be out of your hair early. I promise I won’t leave the place a mess.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle didn’t look up. “You should really invest in a cleaning service if you’re going to leave your apartment looking like shit all the time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve wanted to snap back about the uncapped creams in the bathroom, the cardboard from frozen dinners left on the counter in the kitchen, the piles of clothes and shoes on the floor she saw passing by the master bedroom. But she didn’t. She was too tired.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you have an extra phone charger?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you serious?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My cord broke when I rolled it up in my backpack,” Eve mumbled. “And I grabbed the wrong adapter.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle rolled her eyes so hard Eve thought she’d get whiplash. She grumbled, but got herself up, and set her laptop on the side table. “Wait here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve’s head flopped forward as she raised her fingers to her temples, rubbing them. She glanced at the tv screen flickering on mute, with some talking head reading the unimportant headlines of the day. Villanelle hadn’t closed her laptop, and, well, Eve was still curious. She peeked at the screen and groaned, not even caring that she heard Villanelle coming back behind her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Snooping is rude.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I get paid to snoop,” Eve said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Used to. Now you get paid to hack pork ribs apart.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Please tell me you’re not getting a dog.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s none of your business!” Villanelle said, snatching the laptop from the table and sitting back in her spot on the couch. “This shelter has trial periods.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You travel too much. You can’t take care of a dog. Unless… you’re not getting one to take care of it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What does that even mean?” Villanelle looked up, brows furrowed. “You think I’m going to… what? Eat it? Shoot it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I—” Her fingers returned to her temples, unable to keep up with the trajectory of the conversation. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Obviously.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know, you really are in a shitty mood,” Eve said, plopping down into one of the straight-backed chairs at the sitting table. “What’s wrong? Why the hell are you Googling dog adoptions?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle shook her head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oksana…” Eve dipped her chin just a bit, and met Villanelle’s hard stare. She looked like she was about to cry. And Eve had borne witness to Villanelle’s moods enough to be marginally startled because this… this wasn’t some bullshit confession of guilt over shepherd’s pie. Or some performance character’s sob-story for a job. Eve had shown up unannounced and unsettled her, disrupting whatever routine Villanelle thought she had planned for the evening. But it didn’t exactly seem like she was prepared to talk about it, least of all to Eve. So, she changed tactics: “You never asked me why.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle sniffed, short and quick. “What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You never asked me why I killed Dasha.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Doesn’t matter.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Doesn’t it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” she said, shaking her head, a single tear rolling over her cheek. “Because at the end of the day, you still did it. You had your reasons. And we’re not the kind of people who get to explain ourselves.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know… I was going to make a joke about you projecting, but you really seem upset this time,” Eve said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you just killed somebody,” Villanelle sucked on the inside of her cheek, eyes teary and absent. “And you don’t seem upset at all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve shrugged. “Go figure.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They sat together in silence for a while, Eve studying Villanelle, Villanelle reaching for her tea and scrolling through the webpages.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should get one of those crossbreeds, if they have them,” Eve said. “The… Doodles, or whatever the hell. They don’t shed as much.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Crossbreed, I will keep that in mind,” she said, sarcastic, clicking loudly from key to key.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“<em>I</em> asked you to explain yourself.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Villanelle asked. “What are you talking about?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In Paris, before…before—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You ran me through with a knife?” she responded, bitter, hurt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Eve said. “Before that. You said you wanted normal stuff. Do you still want that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t do this, Eve, I am not in the mood.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But I want to know,” Eve said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I don’t think you do,” Villanelle finally erupted, throwing her computer onto the cushions, setting her mug down so hard hot tea came spilling over the edges. “Because the second I tell you you’re going to realize it’s the exact same thing you’ve been feeling, that you’ve been <em>wanting</em>, and you’re not going to be able to handle it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle stalked over toward her and loomed, strong and beautiful and a little wild, but Eve had never felt safer. It was the first time since her feet touched the ground in Spain that she’d felt anything at all, sympathy and surprise and something that hedged on respect, mainly because Villanelle had her pegged from the start. She felt… braver for it. That knowledge, that resigned acceptance. She reached out to touch Villanelle’s wrist but the girl snatched her hand away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I kill people,” Villanelle snapped. “And I’m good at it. And I don’t care who they are, or what they do. I care that I do my fun job that I am good at and I get a lot of money, and nice things, and power, Eve. That’s what I want. To be the one who decides when it’s time to walk away. No one makes me go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She knelt in front of Eve and stared and sneered, the heat of her anger flushing her cheeks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And the worst part is, is that there are plenty of people out there just. like. me. But they’re too afraid, or they don’t understand, or they—” Villanelle looked up, furiously blinking back tears, “—or they have something or someone that they use as some stupid, bullshit excuse, because they are not strong enough. They are jealous, and petty, and weak, even though what they want is staring them right in the face. They choose the easy way because they are too scared.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve curled her fingers and swiped the tears from Villanelle’s cheeks. She let her palms rest against Villanelle’s face, cupping the smooth skin, just like she’d done months ago back in her kitchen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Are you going to apologize?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No, are you?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No…</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Eve said, brushing her tangled blonde hair out of her face. Villanelle’s eyes were closed, and she was… trembling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You, I—I was choosing it… you, I mean. I chose you every time. And what killed me is I lost…” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve shook her head, frowned, thought of Bill’s broken body flailing about with glow-in-the dark sticks at the underground club, blood pouring out of his chest. The crimson trickle running down the crease of Kenny’s lips. The spurts from Niko’s neck. She recalled the stain on the floor underneath Hugo when she left him, Elena turning down the stairwell, never texting Eve again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I lost so much, but I didn’t care enough to stop. I didn’t want to stop. It’s not even you, though,” she tried to explain, fingers roving lightly over her cheekbone. “It’s me. Me wanting you is… me being who I am. And I couldn’t…” Eve looked skyward, felt her own tears fall for the first time in weeks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not for her dead husband. But for herself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle, always right:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You are just take-take-take.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “I wasn’t ready to accept that about myself,” Eve finally admitted. “You’re right, and… I’m sorry.”  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle’s face shattered, and Eve pulled her into her arms, because she was breaking, too. Her tears came harder, her chest hitching as she thought of Dasha twitching beneath the golden window. She dug her fingers against Villanelle’s shoulders and buried her face into her neck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle sobbed against Eve, one hand weaving deep in her wet hair, the other wrapped so tightly around her torso Eve thought she might be crushed. Eve heard her mumble something into her neck and tried to press her away, but she clung tight, just readjusted her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wh-what?” Eve gasped.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I killed my mother,” Villanelle said, voice thick, breathing unsteady. It reminded Eve of Niko, choking on his own blood. “In Russia. She…” Villanelle took a deep, staggering inhale. “She was like us, Eve. But she would not say it. She would not… I just wanted…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s okay,” Eve said, smoothing her hand over the back of Villanelle’s head. “It’s okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her mind whirred, the analytical side of her filing away the info that Villanelle did have a mother, living, all this time, far away in Russia. <em>Update the file</em>, her brain told her. <em>Hold her closer,</em> her heart said. Remember that she trusted you with this, that she could be honest when it mattered. That Villanelle could weep real tears, feel real things, even if it was only with Eve.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I feel things when I’m with you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I thought you were special.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Admit it, Eve.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve rocked her in her arms for a long while, holding on even after the tears subsided. And the longer they stayed together the more Villanelle withdrew, tightened, schooled her face back to that remarkable passivity Eve loved to pick apart. Her nose was runny and her eyes were puffy and she had never looked more imperfect.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beautiful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve had to get away, to pull herself out of this twisted truth-spiral before she did something outrageously stupid.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I… I should go to bed,” Eve said, running her wrist underneath her own nose and looking back for the charger Villanelle brought.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” Villanelle said. She tilted her head to the side and took a deep breath, refusing to look at Eve. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, wiped her face one more time with her own hands, and pressed against her knees so she could rise up to standing. Just those few little movements, and the transformation was evident. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle was not vulnerable anymore. She decided when to walk away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What time do you leave?” Villanelle asked, retrieving her cool tea from the coffee table. “I can get some breakfast for you early.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not necessary,” Eve said. “But thanks.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am an excellent hostess,” she insisted, though the swagger fell a little flat. “Even with a surprise house guest.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sure.” Eve grabbed the charger and the wet towel that had fallen to the floor. “Do you need anything?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pardon?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“After… all of that?” Eve asked, kind of jostling her head, embarrassed. “It was just, like, a lot. Do you need some water, before I go up?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle blinked, slowly. “No. No, I am… just tired. I think I will go to bed.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve waved to her with the charger. “Goodnight.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Goodnight, Eve.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>For the first time in six months, Eve was not tired. It was 2:37 am, and she was wide awake. Moonlight spilled through sheer curtains on her right, and her phone was already fully charged. She now had Dasha’s phone plugged up, resting silently on the bedside table, because that was one puzzle piece she was not willing to part with. She’d take it back with her, risking whatever it too to get it through security and home to London. She’d then dive into something deeper with the Twelve, with MI6, the Bitter Pill.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Kenny.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But all of that seemed so far away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All that she wanted, all she could think about, was Villanelle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Had that really happened? Had she really been so open, so honest, and real, even if only for a few minutes? Who was Villanelle’s mother, where was she, or… what remained of her? Does that mean her father is living? What about her home? Does she have siblings? A pet? Is that why she wanted to adopt a dog? Why did she go back to Russia for them? She <em>hates</em> Russia. What else did she do while she was there? Konstantin had said, last week, that she had been gone since Tuesday… how did she spend her days? Who did she talk to, what did they eat?<br/></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How did she kill her?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve wouldn’t get answers lying awake and staring into the dark. It would be weird, to go check on her, but Eve wanted to. Just to make sure she was sleeping. It was the first time Eve could think of that Villanelle looked like she needed sleep, so she could get back that air of imposing smugness and epic ass-holery that Eve had always associated with Villanelle at her peak. It might end poorly, sneaking up on a sleeping assassin, but Eve knew her mind wouldn’t stop buzzing until she did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She huffed and threw the covers off of herself, stepping slow and easy along the carpet and tile. She was just outside of her bedroom in the hallway when she tripped over something large and solid, falling flat on her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Holy fucking—!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, Eve, no—shit, I’m sorry, I…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a click and then a halo of light poured across the orange carpet. When Eve looked up, Villanelle crouched on her hands and knees beside her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve groaned, and turned her face back toward the floor. “Peachy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the fuck are you doing sitting on the floor in the dark?” Eve asked. She tilted her head up to the side and winced, her shoulder screaming at her to find some softer surface to lie on. Villanelle's lips were pursed, her eyes still puffy and her forehead pinched together in adorable worry. Or just regular worry. It wasn’t… adorable.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Ugh.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was worried about you,” Villanelle mumbled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Well dammit that was adorable.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why were you up?” she asked. “Is the room okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Room’s fine,” Eve said, shoving her face back into the carpet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Better than the floor?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yep.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You see, you are not moving, so… it makes me think you like the floor better.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I need a minute.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…is it because you are old? Did you break your hip?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve kicked out to the side and Villanelle snorted when Eve’s toes crunched against her shin. Eve didn’t even have to look up to know that the girl was finally smiling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not <em>that</em> old, Jesus.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay. I’m sorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Normal people don’t just sit in the dark waiting for their guests to trip over them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wasn’t—<em>hmph</em>,” Villanelle flopped back against the wall, and Eve curled over on her side to look at her. “I told you. Downstairs, earlier… it was… weird. 'A lot,' like you said. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was weird,” Eve said, staring blankly ahead. “You could get someone in here to clean the baseboards.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Villanelle snorted. “Yeah, okay.” She ran clear, manicured fingernails along the wood at the base of the wall, and Eve wondered if Villanelle had ever done household chores in her life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was worried about you, too,” Eve said, after a beat. “That’s why I was going down. I even thought, ‘you know, I probably shouldn’t go hover over a sleeping assassin, but what the hell’.” She looked up at Villanelle, who had clasped her hands together and propped her elbows on her knees. Backlit by the lamp, all of her edges were softened. She was subdued, clad in matching yellow silk shorts with brocade top and dainty buttons and delicate cream lining. Her hair was down, and she was staring at Eve’s legs. Eve knew better than to equate pretty with innocent, but damn if she didn’t look absolutely breakable in that instant.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But, you know,” Eve continued. “Stalking seems like a pretty natural progression after murder.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know if checking on me is technically stalking.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe not,” Eve said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know I said it didn't matter... earlier. But I think I want to know. Why did you kill her?” Villanelle asked, twiddling her thumbs one over the other. “Dasha. I was thinking about it and I do not… I do not understand the connection.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh,” Eve said, curling her knees up underneath her a bit more. She thought about Dasha’s various kills, the pageantry and excess of them all. Wondered why Niko’s seemed so dull in comparison. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Niko was… unimportant. No, not unimportant. A good man. But it was because he was a good man that he got a stupid death. It was because <em>Eve</em> was unimportant that he went out the way he did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Remember, Eve. The only thing interesting about you is me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She killed Niko.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…<em>what</em>?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In Poland,” Eve said. “She set it up, I think, so I would think it was you. There was a note and everything.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eve, what… what are you talking about?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“After you killed Gemma, and left him in that storage locker, Niko checked himself into a facility,” Eve began, gaze drifting and unfocused. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She curled her fingers in the soft orange carpet on the floor, and thought of the frilly lace patterns on double-D bras, and how absolutely childish they were. She thought of a tiny ballerina twirling to the bell-like melodies from a music box, and wondered if the shrill screaming into the plastic bag as Gemma suffocated matched any of the pitches from the box’s song. She was supposed to feel bad about Gemma; and initially, she did. But she came to realize, over months of gut-wrenching self-analysis, that she didn’t care about Gemma for Gemma’s sake. She cared about Gemma because Niko cared about Gemma. Object permanence. I-it. Or whatever the hell the guy with the PowerPoint had said. Or maybe none of that at all. Because she broke Gemma's music box and Villanelle duck-taped plastic over her face and here they were together, while Niko and Gemma were gone.<br/></span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eve?” Villanelle prompted, her voice very far away. “What happened after that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He was doing very well,” Eve said. “Six months in a psych ward, away from me, you know.” Eve curved her back and pulled her knees into her abdomen, then started tracing absent shapes into the fuzzy carpet strands with her right hand. She tapped her index, her middle finger, her ring finger, against the floor, noting where she’d once worn a simple band Niko had given her when they’d traveled to Budapest for their fifth anniversary. It was gold, and had a tiny emerald inlay. Simple, but good. Just like Niko.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He checked himself out about three weeks ago,” Eve continued. “Didn’t tell me. I was a little wrapped up in… other things. My colleague—friend, Kenny—he was murdered. MI6 brought me back, unofficially. I’d been looking into it, and hadn’t gone to see Niko as often… he didn’t even call me when he left,” Eve said, feeling so… hollow. Niko was gone, her normal was gone, and she couldn’t even cry for him. She could mourn what her life was <em>with</em> him, <em>because</em> of him, but she couldn’t cry <em>for</em> him. “I was distracted. London buses, you know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hmm.” Villanelle shuffled closer along the hallway wall, and suddenly Eve felt hands in her hair, stroking there. She almost wished Villanelle would snap her neck, so she wouldn’t have to finish the story. Knew Villanelle would do it, too, if she really begged her. She thought it might be easier, to be gone, so she wouldn’t feel so bad about… not feeling anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was my birthday, when I found out he left,” she said. “Thank you for the cake, by the way.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re welcome,” Villanelle whispered. “Did you like it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I threw it off a roof.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The hands in her hair stopped moving.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The last present you gave me had a razor blade in it, so…” Eve pressed her palm into the floor, wondering what sort of impact could crush the fortified arch of a zygomatic bone. Would she dream of a dangling eye, or a drooping, broken mandible? She had terrors where she woke, screaming, after Rome, about flying bits of skull and oozy grey matter. But eventually with the morphine and the pain pills it all stopped. She remembered Raymond—how could she forget?—but it was like trying to look through a waterfall. Everything was hazy and blurry when she tried to visualize it, and a roar of white noise thundered in her ears. The only thing she could remember with absolute clarity was the red of the ax, and the red of Villanelle’s outfit, and the matching spray of blood on her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hit him again!</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Niko left for Poland when he checked out,” Eve said. “His family was there. We’d already sold the house, but… he hadn’t even served me papers. We were still married…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She still wore her wedding ring on her left hand. There’s no bright diamond, no large, pretentious jewel, but it’s there, and it’s perfectly him. It had been there for over a decade and she couldn’t take it off yet. She twirled it on her finger over and over after Paris, wondering if she still deserved to wear it after what she did. Turns out Paris was a cake-walk compared to everything that would follow. She should’ve placed it on top of the coffin with him at the graveside, burying the best of her along with him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He texted me,” Eve said. “Or… I thought he did. It was after I kissed you, and I was so angry. I was so… scared. Have you ever been afraid to kiss someone?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Villanelle answered, back to her soft strokes. “Not like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wanted to see him, to see how he was,” Eve said softly. “I wanted to put him first, for once. To choose him, even though… I haven’t loved him for a long time. Not the way I used to. But he didn’t deserve any of that. Just because I am… how I am. Does that make sense?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I do not think I am the best person to answer that question,” she said, twirling one of Eve’s curls in her fingers. “I love the way you are.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve reached back over her shoulder and grabbed Villanelle’s hand, clutched it tightly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She used a pitchfork. Through his throat,” Eve said, blinking. “He was working in a barn, and… there was shit everywhere, that’s what I remember. Niko bleeding out on the ground, surrounded by shit he never asked for. Because of me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You did not kill him, Eve.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I did, though,” Eve said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eve—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know I haven’t cried since he died?” she said. “N-not really. At the funeral, I dabbed a tissue against my eye, for his family to see me. I think I remember… a tear, in the church. Or at the barnyard, with the shock of it. But I think there’s supposed to be something more—visceral? God, I’ve been with him so long, but I can’t mourn him. I can’t sob for him. I’ve been close to a panic attack, but… no tears. No real ones.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not true,” Villanelle argued. “Downstairs you—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That was for you,” she said, digging her nails into the back of Villanelle’s hand. “And for me, I think. Not for him, I can’t seem to… feel for him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You avenged him, at least.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve felt her body deflate a bit, sinking even further against the hard floor. She’d had that passing thought earlier—<em>vengeance</em>—but now, she didn’t entirely agree with it. Her eyes felt scratchy and her body achy from lying so long on the floor. It seemed talking about it all had finally worn her out. Her grip on Villanelle’s hand loosened, her legs uncurled from her belly a little. She shut her eyes and rolled onto her back on the floor, wondering how much longer she would feel this empty.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think we should go to bed,” Villanelle whispered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t sleep.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t either, especially knowing you’re going to be on the floor. Come down with me, my mattress is very nice and I do not snore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just to sleep, Eve. Or to lie in the dark, whichever you choose.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t… move.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…did you really hurt yourself?” Villanelle asked, shifting so that she came to bend between Eve and the wall. “Do you need help?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know, I… I don’t—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on,” Villanelle said, pulling Eve up to seated by her hands. She squatted in front of her and looked her square in the eye, the light from the lamp casting half of her face in shadow. “You can wiggle your toes and your fingers, yes?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve rotated her bare feet at the ankle, and twiddled her fingers for effect. Villanelle’s lips quirked up on the left side, and her eyes crinkled at the edges. “You are fine, get up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eve would look back and be unable to remember how she made it down to Villanelle’s room. She remembered instead yellowish stone walls in a cheap Italian hotel, Villanelle’s face pressed against the back of her shoulder as she guided her down the stairs, one of her hands trailing against the wall for balance. Eve wondered if something similar happened in Villanelle’s Spanish mansion. She seemed to have zoned out, for the next thing she knew she was lying on her side and staring at Villanelle’s sleeping form, tracing the moonlight as it dipped over the bridge of Villanelle’s nose and the lines of her neck. Eve’s hand tingled where Villanelle’s fingers were curled in her palm. She remembered thinking she would sleep, eventually, because Villanelle was right: her mattress was super comfortable and she did not snore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But she did drool.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And something about that detail made Eve feel safe enough to finally, blissfully, close her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>these two need couples therapy but also regular therapy but also... jail. Thanks to everyone who has read and followed along!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>lol i made it soft oops</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eve woke to sunlight streaming across her face, warm and rested and very much not in her London flat. There were flowery turquoise and terracotta tiles on the ceiling above her and soft fluffy sheets wrapped around her—nothing like her flannels back home. The ceiling fan whirred lazily, stirring the still air in the spacious Spanish bedroom. Blinking against the brightness, she rose, turned, and found an empty, still-warm depression in the mattress beside her.</p>
<p>Had yesterday really happened?</p>
<p>She rolled her aching shoulder and focused, remembering a red eye from Heathrow, her backpack, the stroll to the bowling alley, and everything that unfolded from there. She remembered crying, and Mediterranean takeout with Rocky Road ice cream, and Villanelle’s tears on her neck. She automatically reached for the table at her bedside, wondering where her phone—her phone with her six alarms—was. She saw a dated digital clock instead and gulped at the glaring red numbers on the display: 9:15 AM.</p>
<p>
  <em> Shit. </em>
</p>
<p>She flung the duvet off of her legs and sprinted out of the room, barreling past the living quarters and the kitchen to look for her backpack that she’d dropped in the foyer.</p>
<p>“Good morning Eve, did you sleep well?” Villanelle asked from her perch in the kitchen, while Eve yanked zippers and pockets open, desperately searching for her jeans.</p>
<p>“ ‘I<em> slept wonderfully Villanelle. Your mattress is very supportive. How did you sleep?</em>’ ” Villanelle mimicked in a bad American accent. Eve didn’t even have time to tell her to shut up.</p>
<p>She was going to miss her flight. Her evading-arrest-due-to-blatant-murder flight.</p>
<p><em>Shit. Fuck. Damn</em>.</p>
<p>“Eve, what’s wrong?”</p>
<p>“I’m late. My alarm didn’t—shit, where’s my phone?!”</p>
<p>“You are late for…?”</p>
<p>“I’ve got to pick up the rental car. It takes, like, hours to get to Montpellier.”</p>
<p>“You’re driving to France?”</p>
<p>“I booked a noon plane for Paris, then on to London.”</p>
<p>“Eve.”</p>
<p>Eve had one leg in her jeans and her hands were preoccupied with unfurling a pair of socks from their roll.</p>
<p>“<em>Eve.</em>”</p>
<p>“What?!”</p>
<p>“There is no way you are making that flight.”</p>
<p>“I just killed someone,” Eve said, rushing, hopping like an idiot to get her other foot in her pants leg. “I need to get out of the damn country.”</p>
<p>Villanelle flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Not a big deal.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“There is nothing on the news about it,” Villanelle said. “Were there cameras?”</p>
<p>“Eight of them.” Despite Villanelle’s nonchalance, Eve was still scrambling for her things. Passport, bra—hell, she could skip that—watch, shoes, no, the shoes go <em>on</em> her feet—</p>
<p>“Did you avoid them?”</p>
<p>“No,” Eve said, thinking back to her message to the Twelve. “I flipped them off.”</p>
<p>“You what?” Villanelle guffawed, putting down her coffee mug and coming around the counter so she could watch Eve struggle with her boots. “Why would you do that?”</p>
<p>“In case the Twelve saw it,” Eve said, stooping to wrestle with her laces. “I was just… done. Bastards.”</p>
<p>“They are,” Villanelle said, leaning against the wall.</p>
<p>Eve could feel her eyes on her, which is why she kept fumbling with the damn laces. In less than twelve hours, some indefinable <em>thing</em> had shifted so totally that she felt 100% fine exposing the back of her neck to the woman who had put a bullet through her. The discomfort was still very present but the fear that had accompanied it for so long had been replaced by a scattered sort of contrariness: Eve was all at once so sure of Villanelle and yet utterly blindsided by her truth, her concern, and, at the present moment, her logic.</p>
<p>“Eve, please stop. It is not possible. Cancel your flights, I’ll get you there tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Eve stopped fidgeting. “You think they’ll arrest me between now and then?”</p>
<p>“No,” Villanelle said. “I’ll make you a new passport. Easy-peasy.”</p>
<p>“Oh, really,” Eve said. “And you just… have those? Blank passports?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”  Villanelle cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “It is not good to leave the scene in a hurry. You are more likely to speed while trying to make your flight, which will draw unwanted attention. Best to act like everything is normal. ”</p>
<p>“God, I just…” Eve dropped her other boot, then ran a hand through her tangled mass of hair. “Yeah, yeah okay, you’re probably right.”</p>
<p>“Trust me, I’ve done this hundreds of times.”</p>
<p>“…hundreds?”</p>
<p>Villanelle propped her chin on her curled fist, feigning deep thought. “I believe so.”</p>
<p>Eve groaned as she kicked her pack off to the side, then struggled to take off the one shoe she was able to wrestle onto her foot in her initial mad dash. She yanked the cuff of her ankle into place and finally slid up her fly and buttoned her zipper. Barefooted, but at least she got the pants on. “Fine, I should… obviously defer to you on this. And you’re okay playing unexpected host one more night?”</p>
<p>“More than okay.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Eve nodded.</p>
<p>Villanelle smiled. “Okay.”</p>
<p>Running a hand through her hair again, she tried not to think about how she and Villanelle had been together longer in the past several hours than they had even while working together on the Peele case. Last year, they had charged at and retreated from each other in bursts of contention, like knights thundering alongside rails with their lances extended, seeing who could strike the most devastating blow. They both kept their seats, even as the meetings grew more violent, more raw, hurling truths and accusations at each other that landed heavy and hard. Until it all came to a head and Villanelle landed her kill shot, which had somehow led them… here.</p>
<p>Waking up together after crying over each other.</p>
<p>Because that’s what normal people who are definitely not in a relationship but who would easily kill for the other person would do, normally.</p>
<p>Normal.</p>
<p>Eve hated that fucking word.</p>
<p>
  <em> You don’t know how hard it is to be nice and decent and normal instead of like you. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Like us, you mean. </em>
</p>
<p>“How did you sleep, then?” Eve tried, bypassing Villanelle to take a seat at the kitchen table. It looked like Villanelle was working on breakfast, and Eve was willing to talk about anything boring just to get out of her own head.</p>
<p>“Very well, after you came down,” Villanelle said. “I have sausages and eggs—how do you like?”</p>
<p>“Scrambled, please.”</p>
<p>“Cheese and fruit in the refrigerator,” Villanelle said. “Coffee on the hob.”</p>
<p>“Toast?”</p>
<p>“Bread basket under the window.”</p>
<p>Eve got up to help and they moved around each other easily. Eve knew where the plates and cutlery were from last night, and Villanelle passed off mugs with ease. Eve noticed every little thing about the energy between them; easy, much too easy.</p>
<p>“You? Coffee?” Eve asked.</p>
<p>“One sugar, please.”</p>
<p>Eve could count on one hand the number of people whose morning coffee preferences she knew. Adding Villanelle to that list seemed significant, somehow. She stirred the sweetener into a mug with pretty beach shell patterns on it and passed it off to Villanelle, who was staring at the frying pan with concentrated intensity.</p>
<p>“I can’t believe I slept so late,” Eve muttered, lips curling over the rim of the warm mug. God, she’d missed good coffee. The cuppas they had at the Bitter Pill chill station just didn’t cut it.</p>
<p>“I think you needed it,” Villanelle said.</p>
<p>“Why, are you saying I looked tired?”</p>
<p>“I am saying you always talk about how tired you are. I think you have been tired for years."</p>
<p>“Fair point,” she said, taking another sip from her mug. “What time did you wake up? You weren’t waiting on me for breakfast, were you?”</p>
<p>“No,” Villanelle said, spinning her spatula in the pan. “What time is—oh, yes, I’ve been up for… fifteen minutes, maybe?”</p>
<p>“That’s good,” Eve said, taking a knife to a large loaf of bread. “Toast?”</p>
<p>Villanelle shook her head.</p>
<p>Eve cranked up the oven and sliced a piece for herself, opening only two cabinets before finding a pan. “I’m glad you slept hard, after. You needed it, too.”</p>
<p>“Slept… hard?”</p>
<p>“You were drooling into your hair.”</p>
<p>“I was not!” Villanelle looked absolutely appalled.</p>
<p>“OH-kay.”</p>
<p>“I do not drool,” Villanelle said. “Drooling is gross.”</p>
<p>“I must’ve been mistaken, then,” Eve said, eyeing her over her mug.</p>
<p>“You most certainly were.”</p>
<p>Eve slid her pan with bread into the oven, and set the timer. Villanelle spooned eggs and sausage links onto their plates and turned toward the fridge, pulling out a carton of juice.</p>
<p>“…do you want a mimosa?” she asked, her head stuck in the cooler.</p>
<p>“What—really? Are we celebrating something?”</p>
<p>“No, but… what else are we going to do today?”</p>
<p>“Avoid the police,” Eve answered blithely.</p>
<p>Villanelle rolled her eyes and emerged with a blue glass bottle—not Veuve Clicquot, or Dom Pérignon, but something equally fancy-looking that she would probably never dare dilute with orange juice if Eve hadn’t stayed for breakfast.</p>
<p>“I am brilliant at evading the police,” Villanelle said, unraveling the foil from the top of the bottle and twisting the wire from its little cork cage. “I have a motor scooter that goes through very narrow alleys. You can even wear the pink helmet.”</p>
<p>“How much was that booze?” Eve redirected.</p>
<p>“More than you make in a week of shifts at your restaurant, I think,” Villanelle said, thumb on the cork and popping the bottle with practiced ease.</p>
<p>Eve found two champagne flutes and set them before Villanelle, who filled the glasses with a touch of juice and topped them off with bubbly. Eve turned and retrieved her toast while Villanelle found butter from the fridge.</p>
<p>“Is that everything?” Eve asked, taking her seat at the table.</p>
<p>Villanelle took a huge swig of champagne directly from the bottle before taking her place across from Eve. “Yes, unless you are still hungry after this.”</p>
<p>Eve rarely had more than a cup of tea in the mornings, so she didn’t think she’d be craving much of anything later.</p>
<p>“Looks great.”</p>
<p>Villanelle grinned, and raised her champagne flute. “Should we…” she glanced at Eve’s plate. “…<em>toast</em>?”</p>
<p>Eve stared at her. “Oh my god. Are you serious?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“That was<em> so</em> bad.”</p>
<p>“And how many languages can you make puns in?” Villanelle fired back.</p>
<p>“Three, but they’d never be that stupid.”</p>
<p>“…three?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“English, Korean… what else do you speak?”</p>
<p>“Je parle le français mieux que toi,<em> conasse</em>.”</p>
<p>Villanelle nearly dropped her glass, she looked so excited. “Eve!”</p>
<p>“Summer internships in Montreal,” Eve said, reaching for her own champagne flute. “What are we toasting to, then?”</p>
<p>Villanelle stared at her glass, then her gaze floated back over to Eve. “I did not think that far ahead.”</p>
<p>“You were going to say something inappropriate until I distracted you with French.”</p>
<p>“I was not,” Villanelle insisted, raising her glass. “To honesty, then, if you do no believe me.”</p>
<p>“Honesty?”</p>
<p>“I feel like we have been very honest with ourselves since last night,” Villanelle replied, her voice laced with that evasive vulnerability from her crying jag in Eve’s arms. “It is… not as bad as I thought it would be.”</p>
<p>Eve dipped her head, and clinked glasses with Villanelle. “To honesty, then.”</p>
<p>Villanelle held her glass aloft, and they both took a sip. Eve waited until Villanelle had a mouthful of sausage and eggs before ruining the moment: “If we are going to be honest, will you tell me about Russia?”</p>
<p>Villanelle paused, only momentarily, before working through her discomfort to keep chewing. She swallowed a huge mouthful of food, then reached for her mimosa. “I am very good at dung throwing.”</p>
<p>Eve paused, her fork hovering in mid-air, as she tried to process that statement. “Okay, that’s… uhm… not quite where I was going—”</p>
<p>“I won a fan.”</p>
<p>“A what?”</p>
<p>“A fan,” Villanelle said. “An electric, standing fan, which… does not make a lot of sense. It is very cold in Russia, most months.”</p>
<p>“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Eve said, spearing an orange slice onto her fork. She regarded Villanelle, who stared at her plate and chewed. “So is there like a professional league for that, or do you just throw shit for fun?”</p>
<p>“It was a festival.”</p>
<p>“A festival, really,” Eve said. “With snacks and games and… prizes, apparently?”</p>
<p>“Do not sound surprised, Russia has festivals.”</p>
<p>“And really big-ticket prizes, too. A whole fan.”</p>
<p>Villanelle tried not to grin, but Eve saw her lips curl around her fork.</p>
<p>“Music?” Eve asked.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Fireworks?”</p>
<p>“A few.”</p>
<p>“Dancing?”</p>
<p>“I am not very good at dancing,” Villanelle confessed. “Bor’ka, he didn’t dance either, but he was upset.”</p>
<p>“Who is Bor’ka?” Eve asked, gently. “And why was he upset?”</p>
<p>“He lost the baking competition,” Villanelle said, popping a date into her mouth, chewing, sipping her mimosa, not meeting Eve’s eyes. “My half-brother.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“Do you have brothers?” Villanelle asked.</p>
<p>“No,” Eve said, shaking her head. “Only child.”</p>
<p>“Feels that way, sometimes,” Villanelle sliced through half a sausage and Eve watched the grease spill out onto the plate. She wondered if she’d ever be able to look at a meal again without thinking about the gushy insides of bodies.</p>
<p>“I didn’t know… I didn’t know I had a half-brother.”</p>
<p>“Who likes baking,” Eve said, unsure if the brother was even still in the picture, given what little details Villanelle provided her with last night.</p>
<p>“He doesn’t like baking,” Villanelle corrected her. “He was trying to win the prize money.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“He is obsessed with Elton John. Wants to see the farewell tour.”</p>
<p>“Oh, you’re kidding me.”</p>
<p>“No,” she said, punctuating her explanations with a stab of her fork in the air. “He is twelve and has a feather boa. He is going to get the shit beat out of him.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to sound so happy about it.”</p>
<p>“His long-lost sister came back and blew up his house,” Villanelle said blankly, scooping up another mouthful of egg. “He would get the shit beat out of him either way.”</p>
<p>“Not a very happy reunion, then.”</p>
<p>“He got a lot of money out of it, so…” Villanelle shrugged. “He’ll just have to live in the barn with Pyotr, from now on.”</p>
<p>Eve let her have a break, sipped on coffee and nibbled at her toast. There was so much information coming to her, now, and it was with a startling tug in her heart that she understood Villanelle was telling her the whole truth. She was just as sure of it now as she had been when she insisted Villanelle had not killed Niko, despite all evidence to the contrary. But she knew. Somehow, she just couldn’t explain it…</p>
<p>
  <em> To honesty. </em>
</p>
<p>“… and who is Pyotr?” she ventured, taking another bite of fruit.</p>
<p>“My brother.”</p>
<p>“Hmm,” Eve said, noncommittally. “And what does he do?”</p>
<p>“Lumberjack.” Villanelle finished off her mimosa and then poured herself another glass of straight champagne. “And beats the fuck out of couches with boards. Violent streaks, you know. Runs in the family.”</p>
<p>“And your mother?”</p>
<p>Villanelle took a gulp of champagne then gathered her plate and utensils, done for the moment. “Do you want to watch a movie?” she asked, turning the tap on and letting the water stream over the grease on her plate. Eve watched her stare at the sink, at the food bits and runny egg leftovers swirling down the drain.</p>
<p>
  <em> How would you kill me? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I’d poison you with saxitoxin, and smother you with a pillow in your sleep. Then, I’d cut you up into little pieces, boil you down and take you to work in a flask and flush you down the toilet. </em>
</p>
<p>“Sure,” Eve said, finishing off her own mimosa.</p>
<p>She’d find out the rest of the story eventually. As long as she was still working on Kenny’s case, she had the connections, the tools, the time. But watching Villanelle in the morning light, scrubbing floral-scented dish soap over her plate and mug, placing everything into the drying rack, she knew what she really wanted. For Villanelle to be the one to tell her. For Villanelle to trust her enough to reveal everything, to give it to her willingly, just as Eve had done in return.</p>
<p>
  <em> Will you give me everything I want? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Yes. </em>
</p>
<p>“Thank you for breakfast.”</p>
<p>Villanelle nodded, and took Eve’s empty plate from her as she passed it over. Water splattered and rushed from the tap, drowning out the noise of Eve’s intrusive thoughts.</p>
<p>“You are welcome,” Villanelle said, turning back to her task. “Entertainment console is in the living room. I will finish this, you pick a movie,” she said, swiping away at a streak of butter on the edge of the plate. “Do not forget the champagne.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“What is this movie about, again?” Villanelle asked, strutting into the living space in her fuzzy fox socks. Eve was wrestling with the remote on the console, which had defaulted to Spanish.</p>
<p>“Teenagers, Porsches…” Eve furrowed her brow as she hit ‘select’, moving back until she was certain the opening credits were rolling and that she’d picked the original English version, not a Spanish dub. “Prostitutes. Very… 80s.”</p>
<p>“How were the 80s?” Villanelle asked as she plopped on the couch, throwing her whole body down the length of the cushions so that Eve would just have to move her.</p>
<p>“Piss off,” Eve said, shuffling toward the far end of the couch to face the television. She lifted Villanelle’s legs and tried to toss them back towards Villanelle, but ended up with the woman’s feet in her lap instead. The opening credits scrolled across the screen over a dated, nondescript cityscape in bright neon, reminding her of the bowling alley and Dasha’s fractured, deformed face. The narrator began his opening monologue, and Villanelle huffed when he wasn’t even halfway through the set-up.</p>
<p>“You are sure this is a classic? It doesn’t seem very—”</p>
<p>
  <em> Shower scene. </em>
</p>
<p>Villanelle quickly shut up.</p>
<p>Eve tried not to smirk, watching Villanelle watch the movie. She was following the story a bit, and Eve tracked her eyes as Tom Cruise moved from a basement full of hazy cigar smoke to an airport with absolutely no security in a pre-9/11 world. He’d set the frozen dinner on the plate in the dining room, and the iconic scene she mentioned last night, casually, after murder, was about to come on.</p>
<p>“Here it comes,” she mumbled.</p>
<p>“Here what comes?”</p>
<p>“The scene.”</p>
<p>“What scene?”</p>
<p>“<em>Old Time Rock N’ Roll</em>.”</p>
<p>“What is that?”</p>
<p>Eve let her head flop back on the couch, before turning to look at Villanelle. “Seriously? Bob Seger?”</p>
<p>“I mean, maybe if I heard the song…”</p>
<p>“You have to know this scene. It’s… you like movies!”</p>
<p>“I know I like movies!” Villanelle argued, defensive.</p>
<p>“And you’ve never seen this bit?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Bullshit.”</p>
<p>“No! I am telling the truth.”</p>
<p>Eve had a hard time believing Villanelle, couture queen and travel icon and apparent Elton John fan, had never been exposed to the Tom Cruise-slides-in-on-the-floor-boards scene.</p>
<p>“That’s crazy, you’ve missed out on pretty influential pop culture since the 80s.”</p>
<p>“We can’t all be old, Eve.”</p>
<p>“People who aren’t old know this shit! I could do this in my sleep!”</p>
<p>“Then do it.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Do it,” Villanelle challenged, pressing pause on the remote.</p>
<p>“God, no.”</p>
<p>“What?” Villanelle asked, finally turning her attention fully toward Eve. “If it’s so important, surely a small reenactment—”</p>
<p>“Are you doing this on purpose?” Eve asked, meeting her gaze, searching her for some sort of ulterior motive. Because the charge was still there, thrumming under her skin even if it didn’t feel like it was about to shoot out of her fingers. She looked at Villanelle and wondered if she felt the same—that their big feelings had morphed into something more manageable, but still so tantalizingly present.</p>
<p>“I do not know what you’re talking about,” Villanelle replied, and… God, Eve might just be able to get the upper hand again. She really looked like she’d never heard of this before.</p>
<p>“I’m gonna need one of your shirts,” Eve said, returning Villanelle’s hard stare just as intensely. “And…”</p>
<p>“And…?” Villanelle prompted, and Eve liked the way her chest moved a little more labored than normally. She let her eyes rake down over Villanelle’s body, yellow pajamas bright, legs pale, feet perched decidedly in her own lap.</p>
<p>“I’m going to need your fuzzy socks.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-buh… </em>
</p>
<p>Eve posted up in the foyer, Villanelle’s hairbrush in hand, the tv blaring in the background.</p>
<p>
  <em> Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-buh… </em>
</p>
<p>Holy shit, she was really doing this.</p>
<p>She got a running start, feeling the pads of her feet connect with the tile, and then the inevitable slip of material on surface, the slight whoosh of air as she made her grand entrance, coasting into Villanelle’s chic living room, along with 20-something Tom Cruise with his slick socks on his parent’s hard-wood floors.</p>
<p>
  <em> Just take those old records off the self— </em>
</p>
<p>Eve started lip-synching, dancing, pelvic-thrusting in Villanelle’s oversized men’s button-up with the dumb hair-brush microphone and stupid surround-sound Eve was just now realizing Villanelle had installed in a damn Spanish villa.</p>
<p>This was easily a forty-second scene, a minute, max… no time at all, in the grand scheme of murder and packing and driving and security checks. But for however long she had with the music blaring in the background, and Villanelle abso-fucking-lutely riveted in front of her, she was going to… play it up. She threw her head back and pretended to sing loud and proud, shifting forward on the balls of her feet as she climbed onto Villanelle’s coffee table, kicking some fancy-ass decór off to the side, falling down on her knees on the couch so that Villanelle had to curl her legs back underneath her, her eyes bugging wide as Eve moved closer.</p>
<p>
  <em> In ten minutes I’ll be late for the door— </em>
</p>
<p>Eve turned over on her back on the couch, kicked her legs out and convulsed in time with the music, fake-singing like some kid playing rockstar in their parents’ absence. She planted her feet back on the floor and curled upwards, popping the shirt collar up around her neck and pretend-strumming her air guitar as the musical interlude played over the scene behind her. Her hips moved freely, her shoulders loosened.</p>
<p>She felt like fire.</p>
<p>In no time, the television was paused, Eve was breathless, and she found herself crowded up against one of those weird stone columns. Villanelle was inches from her face; her hands curled around Eve’s waist and she would not stop looking at her mouth.</p>
<p>“You can dance,” she said, eyes blown so wide and dark it was as if Eve had just taken a golf driver to someone’s nose.</p>
<p>“… sure?”</p>
<p>“<em>Are you doing this on purpose</em>?” She mimicked Eve from moments earlier. “<em>You're</em> the one who did that on purpose." Her voice was an octave lower than it had been in the kitchen earlier.</p>
<p>“No I didn’t.”</p>
<p>(Of course she did).</p>
<p>“Liar.”</p>
<p>“Well… do you like the movie?”</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Villanelle let her head fall into the crook of Eve’s neck, and it was superb. Galvanizing. It felt like vacation on the sea and the sharpness of blood and the rush that accompanied the covert sort of dealings that Eve had only just gotten used to. “I have… a request.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Just a small… fantasy of mine.”</p>
<p>“Uhm—”</p>
<p>“Let me take you shopping,” Villanelle begged, wide-eyed and eager, her breath coming much too fast considering she wasn’t even the one dancing. “Please.”</p>
<p>“We didn’t finish the movie.”</p>
<p>“We’ll finish it later.”</p>
<p>“You liked it?”</p>
<p>“I liked you dancing more.”</p>
<p>Eve fought really, really hard not to smile, but the the reality of yesterday kept her marginally level-headed despite Villanelle standing so close. “You remember I’m trying to lay low, right? I don’t think some unnecessary shopping spree is going to help with the whole 'under-the-radar' thing.”</p>
<p>Villanelle pouted, teasing her fingers along the edge of Eve’s popped collar. “I disagree. I think it is completely necessary.”</p>
<p>“I only paid for one bag, I didn’t even check it—”</p>
<p>“I will buy you luggage, too.”</p>
<p>“You can’t just buy stuff for me.”</p>
<p>“Why not? Will you throw it off a roof again?”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t have thrown it off a roof if I knew it was safe.”</p>
<p>“Eve,” Villanelle whispered, smiling, beaming, looking so damn genuine after all of this that Eve felt like the very final pieces of the puzzle were slotting into place. She had been building Villanelle—<em>Oksana</em>, up—for so long, connecting bits that were lies and trying to force pieces together that didn’t go. It was Oksana, honestly her, and the truth of her was so brilliant Eve didn’t know if she deserved to see it.</p>
<p>“I hope you know I will keep you safe,” Villanelle said.</p>
<p>“Even when you get mad at me for not liking the clothes?”</p>
<p>“Even then,” she swore, placing her hand dramatically over her heart. “I swear.”</p>
<p>“God, okay, whatever. But you’re paying for dinner, too, if you’re going to trek me all over Barcelona High Street—”</p>
<p>“Deal,” Villanelle said, disappearing in a rush of silk.</p>
<p>“Wait, where are you going?”</p>
<p>“I have to get dressed to go shopping!”</p>
<p>“Oh, and how long is that going to take?” Eve shouted, thinking she’d need approximately a minute and forty-two seconds to get her socks and shoes on. Then she’d be ready.</p>
<p>“I can be ready by noon!”</p>
<p>Eve looked at the fanciful clock on the wall. It was 10:23. She scoffed, returned to the kitchen, and poured another mug of coffee. She turned the movie back on and let it play in the background while she rescheduled her flights through Montpellier and Paris, going ahead and paying the extra thirty pounds for a checked bag. If Villanelle had her way, Eve wasn’t leaving without several killer outfits.</p>
<p>She nursed her coffee and performed the requisite social media check, despising the little red icons at the top of her Facebook page—condolences for losses that led to such outstanding gains Eve couldn’t help but shake her head at the number of single-tear face emojis clogging her feed. She logged into her email and noted one item from Jamie, sent with several interesting attachments.</p>
<p>The photos were from a murder in France, dated around the same time she’d gone to Poland.</p>
<p>An older woman's body lay still on the damp brick floor of a greenhouse, strangled to death with a garden hose. A trowel rested near her shoulder and geraniums near her knees. Pointy, brutal clippers were sticking into the frame of the crime scene photo, and it made Eve wonder. The murder was slightly bizarre, but simple, quick, efficient. Done with the materials at hand in a clever moment of resourcefulness, though there certainly could’ve been more… carnage.  Eve looked away from her computer screen as she heard the shower water turn on, pulsing hard and strong from the elaborate hardware. A nude figure floated past the doorway, a floral pink robe trailing in her wake.</p>
<p>Eve scanned the photos, searching for some clue, but it took revisiting the text of the email to slowly start putting the pieces together.</p>
<p>
  <em> Subject: Accountant’s Widow Strangled to Death. </em>
</p>
<p>The accountant for the Twelve. Six million missing. Kruger’s wife, also dead, at the hands of a deft assassin… maybe. What did he know? What did she know? Eve asked Jamie to do some digging with Carolyn, info requests processed at surprising speed with the help of MI6’s stamp on the requisitions. Her phone blew up during her outing with Villanelle, and even though she was distracted, she saw that Villanelle kept smiling as she twirled in silk, cotton, tulle, wool, etc. She slipped into the next dressing room and devoured the messages on her phone, willing to play Barbie if she could have just a few moments to<em> think.</em></p>
<p>She was standing in a dressing room with her pants around her ankles, Villanelle giddy and waiting for the next outfit on the bench outside, when her phone pinged with the response she was looking for.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“So this is like… what you do?” Eve asked, handing over the menu after they had placed their orders with a waiter at Agut, one of the oldest traditional Catalan restaurants in the region. Paintings from local artists covered the walls and simple white cloths were draped over too-close tables, but Villanelle had managed to snag them corner seats away from their neighboring diners (if only to accommodate the embarrassing amount of bags they carted inside with them).</p>
<p>Villanelle topped off her wine glass with the selection from the table carafe, tilting an incredulous brow upwards.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“When you’re not working,” Eve elaborated.</p>
<p>“You asked me that in Paris,” she said, smirking. “And I guess so. I read, I exercise, I recently took a Jack the Ripper walking tour in London!”</p>
<p>“Seriously?”</p>
<p>“Why does everyone respond like that?” Villanelle huffed. “It was very insightful. Victorian gender politics—”</p>
<p>“I just never pegged you for much of a tourist. So you’ve done the Segway Tours through the Gothic Quarter with the awful helmets they make everyone share?”</p>
<p>“I have to draw the line somewhere,” Villanelle teased, bringing her wine glass to her lips and taking a sip. “I do love to shop, though.”</p>
<p>“I can tell.”</p>
<p>“You look beautiful, by the way,” Villanelle said, surveying Eve as closely as some of the patrons did the exclusive art on the walls.</p>
<p>She’d pleaded with Eve to wear one of the purchased outfits out of the first boutique that they’d visited. Instead of her customary dark blouse and office trousers, Eve was now clad in a silky, nutmeg-colored top dotted by half-inch black ovals. The neckline was… well, not a turtle neck; strips of fabric were draped from her shoulders and came to rest in a loose tie at the crest of her chest, a little low-cut for autumn but at least Villanelle hadn’t gone crazy with color or fit. She paired the top with wide-leg navy trousers with brass buttons running up the side of her leg, just flashy enough for Villanelle to smile and yet restrained enough Eve <em>might</em> could pull them off for an evening out (not that she’d had one of those in months). Eve felt stylish, if not exactly beautiful, but that was enough for the moment.</p>
<p>“If I ever retire, I could become your personal stylist,” Villanelle offered, when Eve failed to respond.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t afford you.”</p>
<p>“Hmm, probably not. A personal stylist, then, for anyone.”</p>
<p>“You would retire?” Eve asked, mind cartwheeling back to Kenny’s trace of the financial records, Jaime’s photos and emails. Carolyn’s subpoenaed records. “Can you even… can you even do that in your… uhm… industry?”</p>
<p>“It is… hard, but not impossible,” Villanelle said. “Or so I’m told. Occasionally you get so tied up with all the other organizations that you work for you forget which one you’re trying to walk away from.”</p>
<p>“Sounds like quite the dilemma,” Eve said, taking a sip of water. She had a moment to breathe, because the next bit could really alter the trajectory of the evening, given what she knew about the fraught connection, the reciprocity, the… strange affection the two held for each other: “How long has Konstantin been trying to get out?”</p>
<p>Villanelle's lips slid into that oval of confusion again. An astounded glint shone in her eyes, like Eve had pulled her exact card from a shuffled deck behind her back, and Villanelle was delighted by the trick. “At least since last year,” she answered. “But he wants to make sure Irina is provided for, just in case something goes wrong.”</p>
<p>“Who is Irina?”</p>
<p>“His daughter, remember? The cafe in Moscow?”</p>
<p>“Oh wow, I had… I had forgotten about her,” Eve said, remembering the high gold ceilings, the terrified patrons, a young girl with red hair held at gun point by Villanelle. She herself being held at gun point by Villanelle. “I was a little preoccupied with you waving a gun in my face.”</p>
<p>“Which reminds me, I need to show you how to hold a gun properly.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think that will be necessary.”</p>
<p>“You won’t always have a bowling ball handy.”</p>
<p>Eve scoffed, took a sip of wine, and pressed harder: “What does that mean for you if he’s gone?”</p>
<p>“You killed my other handler,” Villanelle said, her finger traveling up and down the stem of her wine glass. “So I do not know.”</p>
<p>Konstantin had told her Villanelle was looking for a promotion, but with Russia behind her, and last night, this morning, this entire day between them, Eve had to know…</p>
<p>“Would it be an out for you?” Eve asked. “Do you want an out?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Villanelle said, staring flatly at the bread basket in the middle of the table. To an innocent passerby, it would look as though Villanelle were experiencing some religious conversion due to the density and warmth of the dinner rolls, but Eve knew better.</p>
<p>She was coming clean.</p>
<p>“I can’t have the things I want doing what I do.”</p>
<p>“I asked you last night…” Eve challenged. “What do you want?”</p>
<p>“Nice flat. Cool job,” Villanelle said. “Someone to watch bad 80s movies with, who will dance for me and fix me coffee.” She reached for one of the rolls and Eve waited, because Mother Russia was gone and Dasha had been her mentor, Konstantin her father-figure. Eve knew she couldn’t fill every emptiness in Villanelle, and it wouldn’t be right to hand-hold her towards the conclusion.</p>
<p>Eve’s memory overtook her sense, and she was suddenly eating reheated Shepherd’s Pie at her own kitchen table.</p>
<p>
  <em> I don’t want to do this anymore. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> …bullshit. </em>
</p>
<p>Not bullshit this time.</p>
<p>
  <em> To honesty. </em>
</p>
<p>“Can you walk away?”</p>
<p>“Sprint,” Villanelle said, slathering butter onto her roll. “Cross-country ski. High-speed chase, or a boat, or… something. It would have to be… very careful. Very fast. I could not simply walk.”</p>
<p>“At least a year,” Eve said, thinking of Konstantin and his seeming level-headedness. No way Villanelle could acquire the funds to sustain… all of this. Especially in such a tight turn-around. “Do you have the resources?”</p>
<p>“Depends.”</p>
<p>“Depends on what?”</p>
<p>“If you came with me,” she said easily, taking a bite out of the roll. Eve shouldn’t have been captivated by the way she chewed, or moved her fingers at the corner of her lips to catch a crumb, or how her eyes shut briefly to enjoy the warmth of the bite.</p>
<p>“…what do you mean?”</p>
<p>“It’s a lot harder to disappear two people than one,” Villanelle explained. “Why Konstantin took so long. Because of Irina.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“Hmm,” Villanelle replied, washing her bread down with more wine. “I would like to think I could leave you behind.”</p>
<p>“…but?”</p>
<p>“Experience has proven the contrary,” she said, cryptic and crystal clear with the same few syllables. The waiter appeared before them with a smile and their first course, a deferential demeanor and a massive tray laden with local delicacies, piled one atop the other until their entire table was covered with choice, and abundance, and indulgence.</p>
<p>“You would give it all up for… retirement?” Eve said. “You have everything you want.”</p>
<p>“Don’t you dare,” Villanelle said, licking her upper lip. “Nowhere close to everything.”</p>
<p>“Why?” Eve asked, her gaze tracing the arch of Villanelle’s fingers to her lips, the line of her fanciful blouse about her neck, the curl of her hair and the sincerity of her expression.</p>
<p>Villanelle rested her hand, palm up, on the table top. Eve’s fingers trembled, but she found herself slipping her own hand into Villanelle’s, waiting for some explanation, something that could help her make sense of the monumental sacrifice. They’d just spent more than 3.000 Euro on dresses and scarves and silks and trousers and heels and bags and a moisturizer Eve couldn’t even pronounce. She’d showered last night surrounded by black and gold tile and lathered herself in exotic soaps and creams. She awoke to a breathtaking garden and gorgeous architecture and high-speed Internet and a kitchen full to the gills with anything a Michelin chef could want. Villanelle had a scooter, and a pink helmet, and… freedom.</p>
<p>What could possibly tempt her away from paradise?</p>
<p>“Do not play dumb, Eve,” Villanelle whispered, squeezing her hand. “It does not suit you.”</p>
<p>Eve bit her lip, shook her head from side to side, but squeezed back with all the strength she had left in her.</p>
<p>“Eh-hem—¿señoras?” the waiter said, standing awkwardly beside the table. “¿Aqua?”</p>
<p>“Read the room, Vidal,” Villanelle said.</p>
<p>“¿Qué?”</p>
<p>“Water, si,” Eve said, clearing her throat and pulling her hand away from Villanelle’s. “Por favor.”</p>
<p>The waiter filled their glasses and the table’s pitcher for good measure, scurrying off and avoiding Villanelle’s hateful gaze as he returned to the kitchen.</p>
<p>“Don’t.”</p>
<p>“He ruined a nice moment.”</p>
<p>“How could he know? We weren’t exactly saying anything.”</p>
<p>“Do you have something to say?” Villanelle countered, tearing her murder gaze away from the kitchen door.</p>
<p>“I…”</p>
<p>“…yes?”</p>
<p>“I think I’ll close my eyes next time.”</p>
<p>Villanelle reached for the <em>fricandó</em> , smile so wide she glowed like a supernova. “Please do. Tongue would… likewise be appreciated.”</p>
<p>Eve curled her fingers into fists and counted to ten just so she wouldn’t throw the half-empty bread basket at Villanelle’s head.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>sorry to anyone who actually speaks the languages referenced i used google translate and i am lazy</p>
<p>also please imagine sandra oh reenacting this scene you're welcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2UVsyVLLcE</p>
<p>if you like it, would love to hear from you!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eve was, somehow, in two places at once.</p>
<p>Physically, she was standing in the Bitter Pill offices, staring at a white board of blood and murder and money and doubt.</p>
<p>Mentally, emotionally, she was perched beside a rental car in a windy parking lot in Montpellier, France, at a small regional airport.</p>
<p>
  <em> “I wish you could stay.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “The longer I stay, the more dangerous it is. And I’m helping with the investigation, Kenny—” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “I know, like you said…when will I see you again?” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “I—I don’t know.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “Better make it count, then.” </em>
</p>
<p>She remembered the smell of smokey perfume and the press of wet flesh and the support of cool metal against her back as she leaned against the door of the sedan. They had lain close and chaste against each other for one more night in the villa but then, at the airport, there was just… a lot going on with the articulators. Murder was Eve’s language of choice, but Villanelle had mastered syllables foreign and domestic with the specialized tools of linguistic practice: her lips were full, her teeth were quick, and her tongue, <em>God, her tongue</em>—</p>
<p>“What do you see?” Jaime asked, bringing her back to London, to grey buildings and pinched dumplings and the utilitarian drag of daily routine.</p>
<p>“Breadcrumbs.”</p>
<p>“Leading to?”</p>
<p>“Something big.”</p>
<p>“That’s very… cryptic,” Bear offered, unhelpful.</p>
<p>Eve’s mind had catapulted past the missing 6.0 million. Villanelle had all but confirmed Konstantin was the one siphoning funds, so the mystery behind Kenny’s fate would come down to an interrogation with him. Not that a conversation like that could be performed here, but again, Eve was over that angle.</p>
<p>What puzzled Eve was the speed of the kills Villanelle had been tasked with performing once Dasha had recruited her back into the fold. There was the agitator in Spain, the CEO of the tech company in France, and now, less than two days since she’d been back in London, a mysterious death via hair dryer of a Romanian politician that shouted foul play. She discounted what she referred to in her head as the Garden Party murder, since the link between the Twelve’s accountant and his wife had, once again, been resolved with Villanelle’s testimony—uh, pillow-talk—in Barcelona. Eve looked at it and traced the threads, but the only thing that occurred to her was too obvious… too blatant… surely the Twelve weren’t…</p>
<p>“When are the EU elections again?” Eve asked, tilting her head to Jamie as he click-clacked behind his monitor.</p>
<p>“Next summer.”</p>
<p>“Hmm.”</p>
<p>“What does that have to do with who killed Kenny?”</p>
<p>The worst part about this new version of herself was that she was constantly assaulted by these pangs of empathy. People, usually Bear or Jamie, had to take her out of her hyper focus and humanize the cases, despite how much Eve wanted to barrel forward, throwing herself headlong in search of a bigger picture. They were the ones working on blocks of jig-saw colors, grouping the clues of reds and yellows and blues together into piles, setting each piece in place with precision, while Eve was stepping away from the table entirely, doing her best to visualize the completed thousand-piece collage even though huge chunks were still missing. Her brain worked rapid-fire; and, if MI6 had taught her anything, it was that bureaucracy and procedure slowed everything down.</p>
<p>Eve had to act fast, and if her peers couldn’t keep up… well, that was on them.</p>
<p>“Are there… like… preliminaries?” She had marginally noted political happenings since she’d relocated to London permanently, only paying real attention when certain laws or edicts or local notices affected her ability to do her job. Though of course, like Jess had said last year, laws had become so much more flexible in her era with MI6.</p>
<p>She knew she wasn't an exception to a rule, and yet...</p>
<p>“What?” Jamie asked.</p>
<p>“Like, caucuses?" Eve clarified. "No, that’s American, I mean—do they have some sort of referendum to narrow the field before they present the final candidates running on their platforms?”</p>
<p>“I think it’s just signatures,” Bear piped up.</p>
<p>“It’s a lot of signatures, though,” Jamie said. “Each candidate can run on the ballot as long as they collect 300,000 signatures.”</p>
<p>“Hmm,” Eve said again, and she could almost feel Jamie’s annoyance take shape.</p>
<p>“Care to share with the class?”</p>
<p>“Not right now,” Eve said, heading towards Bear’s desk, which she’d once again commandeered for her own use. She gathered up her bag, her coat, and a handful of Bear’s Coco-Puffs, before swanning out the door.</p>
<p>“Eve, where are you—”</p>
<p>“It’s for the case, I promise,” she said.</p>
<p>“Eve,” Jamie legged it after her, catching her by the shoulder as she burst out of the office suite doors and into the empty hallway. “Eve, wait.”</p>
<p>“It’s okay, I’ve got my files, and—”</p>
<p>“Bugger the files,” Jamie snapped, and that caught Eve’s attention. He was direct and often sarcastic, but his tone left little room for argument. “Where did you go?” he crossed his arms and stared down at her, rising up to what Eve noted was an impressive height when his shoulders weren’t slumping forward in his editor’s review pose. Eve absently thought that he was <em>trying</em> to seem imposing, but somehow one dinner conversation over cheap beer and a coffee table left her less wary even though he looked like he wanted to beat the shit out of her.</p>
<p>“When?”</p>
<p>“Your trip, you got back Monday.”</p>
<p>“…Poland.”</p>
<p>“<em>After</em> Poland.”</p>
<p>“I don’t see how that’s any of your—”</p>
<p>“You know back in college I could pick up a seven-ten split,” Jamie said, shuffling his feet beneath him. He stared down at the carpet, shook his head, then slowly lifted his chin. “Never did much competition, but a buddy of mine went on tour round the continent. Won a damn tournament in Barcelona.”</p>
<p>
  <em> Shit. </em>
</p>
<p>Play dumb? She should play dumb, that’s what she should do… no, he knows, there’s no way he’d say all of that if he didn’t have some sort of proof, but she had justification, she had a reason, it’s not like she traipsed around willy-nilly slinging bowling balls or axes or—</p>
<p>“Fuck.”</p>
<p>“Fuck’s right,” Jamie muttered. “What the hell, Eve.”</p>
<p>“Listen, Jamie, I know this doesn’t look good.”</p>
<p>“They’ve got you on <em>bloody</em> CCTV, Christ, Eve!”</p>
<p>Eve tilted her head sideways. “Wait, who… who is they?”</p>
<p>“Contact at Interpol,” Jamie said. “For some reason there’s a hold on the footage. Hasn’t been released to local authorities yet.”</p>
<p>“Hmm.”</p>
<p>“I swear to God if you mumble one more time—”</p>
<p>“She killed Niko,” Eve said, as if that explained anything at all. Like murders, or CCTV, or a kiss on a bus and then the Tarmac, or the overall craziness of her fucking life. “And I know that doesn’t matter, and I know that it’s wrong, but that’s what she deserved.”</p>
<p>“Who the hell was she?”</p>
<p>“Dasha Disran,” Eve said, composed. “Ex-KGB, currently operating as a handler for the Twelve. Or… was. I had some unofficial help from MI6 tracking her, and Bear knew I was looking into it, so—”</p>
<p>“MI6… explains the hold on the footage,” Jamie griped, lifting both of his hands up to his head and stepping away from her, taking deep, steadying breaths as he tried to absorb everything.</p>
<p>“…I’m not sorry I did it.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to hear it,” he said, shaking his head back and forth. “Why the hell would she want anything with your husband?”</p>
<p>“She was in with the Twelve,” Eve lied, easily and briskly. “I got too close. I’ve… I’ve been too close for a while now.”</p>
<p>“Why not just put a target on your back?” Jamie asked, jaw twitching. “Have you asked Carolyn about protection?”</p>
<p>Eve almost scoffed, but held it in. Frank, Nadia, the Polish junkie who’d started it all. “Listen, protection with MI6 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. If the Twelve want you dead, then… you know, I’ll take my chances.”</p>
<p>“Safe house?”</p>
<p>“Hell no.”</p>
<p>“You can’t stay at mine,” Jamie said, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared hard at her, as if trying to read some warning label he’d missed in his initial assessment:</p>
<p>
  <em> Eve Polastri: Absolutely Batshit </em>
</p>
<p>“I want to help you, but… I’ve got—”</p>
<p>“Dependents, right,” Eve said, understanding.</p>
<p>Of course it wouldn’t be right, especially if someone came after her. And she only left her flat in the beginning because of Villanelle and that dumb pink teddy bear, but things were different, now. With her, with MI6, with them—had it really only been three weeks since she’d seen her on that bus? Everyday had been a slog through proverbial tar for the past six months, and then suddenly, Villanelle waltzes back into her life and bam!</p>
<p>Warpspeed.</p>
<p>The Twelve might still be looking for her, might have shifted their focus after Dasha, but Eve found, remarkably, that she gave zero fucks about whether or not the Twelve were coming to murder her in her tiny efficiency apartment. Niko’s pension and the lump sum from the death benefits had come through while she was in Barcelona, the assets somehow still in her name. She’d take enough for an advanced three months payment on the flat and send the rest to Poland, which seemed like the best thing to do. It might give her enough time to figure out what the hell her life was turning into. If she wasn’t dead in three months… well, she could reevaluate the depressing flat.</p>
<p>But the unknown had a certain appeal to it. Villanelle would probably show up, or keep murdering, and the dots and slashes of connecting neon would light across her vision like strobes at a club, and she’d be able to put it together, be able to solve it. She wished for a security camera to flip off again. She felt like she was on fire, alive—</p>
<p>
  <em> Wide awake. </em>
</p>
<p>“I’ve got one bag under the bunk bed,” Eve said. “I’ll grab it and be out before you’re home from work.”</p>
<p>“Much obliged.”</p>
<p>“What about the case?”</p>
<p>“I want you on the case.”</p>
<p>There was enough of a pause, enough of a sad-set to his expression, to send Eve’s head into a tailspin.</p>
<p>“…but?”</p>
<p>“But what I saw on that tape?” he mumbled, clenched his teeth, could barely get the words out. “That scared the hell outta me. Just reminds me I’ve got no idea who the fuck you are.”</p>
<p>“That’s… fair,” Eve said.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry about your husband, I’m sorry about Kenny, but I don’t want to put my people in the crosshairs, you understand?”</p>
<p>“One-hundred percent.”</p>
<p>“The second we get a whiff of trouble, you’re out. Can’t have any more murders in this office.”</p>
<p>Eve nodded, turned on her heel, and practically jogged down the stairwell.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Konstantin found her this time.</p>
<p>“Did you have good time in Barcelona?”</p>
<p>Eve’s fingers were covered in doughy grit, her hair tied back beneath her cooking cap. It was her second to last shift at the restaurant, but that didn’t stop the universe from dropping burly Soviet ex-pats into her daily life like extra pieces on a chess board. Initially thrown, she now had to rearrange everything on the fly. But she had a reason, why she came back to all of this, it wasn’t arbitrary, she wanted to help—</p>
<p>
  <em> How many sheets do you need? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I’m just gonna—take the roll. </em>
</p>
<p>“Uhm… yeah,” Eve said, wiping her hands on her apron. “It was fine.”</p>
<p>“Villanelle?”</p>
<p>“…a little sad, to be honest.”</p>
<p>“Sad?” Konstantin asked, his incredulity evident in tone, expression, and the soft shake of his shoulders as he chuckled. “She does not get sad. Frustrated, disappointed… her sadness is fleeting.”</p>
<p>Eve shrugged. “Maybe she’s just good at burying it.”</p>
<p>“She is Russian, not British.”</p>
<p>“No burials, then,” Eve replied. “But a lot of bodies.”</p>
<p>“Heh-heh!”</p>
<p>Despite his general failure at human virtuousness, his laughter was infectious. He pulled out one of the chairs on the glassed-in patio and took a seat, his large frame looking out of place in the mini-metal chair. He motioned for her to take the seat opposite him, and Eve couldn’t really find it in herself to argue.</p>
<p>The restaurant rarely used the space during the winter months, too spacious and porous to heat. Flats of fresh produce were stacked next to the side entrance, and Eve found herself wondering whether she could be choked to death with whole oranges shoved down her throat. Seemed a little much, but she was sitting with an international operative who had killed, certainly, and whose loyalties shifted as fluidly as a breeze.</p>
<p>He’d probably go for blunt force trauma, if it came to it.</p>
<p>It was strange for her to be here with Konstantin, alone, wondering if this was how Villanelle met him back when he was her handler. Predetermined location. Some general chit-chat. And then a card, with a photo or an address or some seemingly indecipherable gibberish scrawled inelegantly along the side of a cheap letter.</p>
<p>No letter this time, but a photo.</p>
<p>And no scrawling, but it wasn’t a pretty picture.</p>
<p>
  <em> Dasha. </em>
</p>
<p>Or… at least what remained of her face.</p>
<p>He pushed a crime scene photo across the table for her review, his large dark eyes glued to her face.</p>
<p>“Villanelle is not normally so sloppy,” he said.</p>
<p>“Then you must know it wasn’t her.”</p>
<p>A beat for the confession to settle, and then:</p>
<p>“They are coming for you.”</p>
<p>She had assumed as much when she first set foot on the plane in Montpellier.</p>
<p>Was Konstantin here to do it himself? To spare Villanelle the pain of knowing some stranger took her out? Was he going to make it special? Again, some primal part of her wasn’t even scared, not in the way she had been when Villanelle essentially water-boarded her in her own bath tub, or held a steak knife against the soft hollow of her throat while she struggled against her own refrigerator.</p>
<p>She remembered looking at Frank’s corpse in the dress especially selected for her, and recalled with morbid fascination that Villanelle was thinking of her, in the dress, as she spilled his blood. Then there was Aaron Peele, and the small, forced rictus as he observed Villanelle in the mirror, carving a larger smile into his throat. Eve had gone to her in Rome… had wanted to save her, to help her, when Villanelle had never really needed her in the first place. And Raymond—god, the grunted words that little man had uttered before Eve swung at his skull—he was gone because Eve had struck a killing blow. She could be like Villanelle’s brother, the lumberjack: <em>beats the shit out of couches with boards.</em> Something about that didn’t seem quite as satisfying looking back through the red waterfall of memory, but it only meant that Eve was prepared to do what needed doing when the time came for it, and that she would have to accept any repercussions that came along with those actions. Like Konstantin, or Carolyn, perhaps.</p>
<p>She had changed.</p>
<p>Death was all around her, and Eve just... didn't care. Like Dasha and the bowling ball, it's just something that had to be done. Her actions would catch up with her soon, but God she wasn’t bored, wasn’t even angry with herself. Instead she was awake and buzzing and knew the end was coming in a resigned sort of nihilistic delight, which would allow her to do whatever the fuck she wanted to in the meantime.</p>
<p>She patted at the pockets of her apron and pulled out her pack of cigarettes, tapping them against her hand.</p>
<p>“Figures,” she said, before extracting a thin white stick and lighting up inside the glass patio. Fuck it. Who cares. She’d be dead within the week. Her aunt would be sadder about that than the fact that she’d done a piss-poor job at dumpling making. “Feels like you owe it to me to say whether or not you killed Kenny,” she said, taking a long drag. “Considering I’ll be dead soon. You know. Last wish and all.”</p>
<p>“Interesting that your last wish is knowledge and not…not some…”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” he said. “Don’t you want me to pass a message to her, or something?”</p>
<p>“She knows,” Eve said, because Villanelle did know, everything Eve could never put into words. A message or a note would just be too much, at this point. “So, Kenny?”</p>
<p>Konstantin was silent. Dead-Dasha stared up mercilessly between them.</p>
<p>“I know you’re taking the money to get out,” Eve said, inhaling, feeling the tight burn in her chest. She absorbed the warmth of tobacco and nicotine and the ease of acceptance with every cigarette she lit.</p>
<p>She’d always been killing herself slowly, very slowly, with a blade knicking her thigh or an elbow against the cracked glass at a bus stop. Her entire existence was an open wound she couldn’t stop herself from picking at despite the steady pool of blood that leaked out of her all the while. Eventually, she wouldn’t have any life left. It was a shame that she only just now felt like she was living.</p>
<p>“Oh?” Konstantin asked, genuinely surprised.</p>
<p>“It wouldn’t take much, you know,” Eve said. “An email. A text. The motive is there, Kenny was going to expose you to the Twelve for stealing funds. So he had to go. You knew him from Carolyn, were in London at the time… sure, it’s circumstantial, but Carolyn’s out for blood.”</p>
<p>“I am not worried about Carolyn.”</p>
<p>“…the Twelve, then?” Eve countered, brushing the tip of her cigarette against the leg of her chair to rid the end of ash. The smokey smell reminded her of the soft space behind Villanelle’s ear. “Someone’s mad you took their money.”</p>
<p>Konstantin's eyes bored into her own like a big Russian bear. He could maul her. Or hell, sit on her. She was flip and he was scared, and that made for a dangerous exchange.</p>
<p>“What do you want?”</p>
<p>“Leave Irina,” Eve said. “Take Villanelle instead, wherever the hell you’re going.”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>Eve’s shoulders sagged, and she took one more puff on her cigarette. “She wants out. You’re her best option.”</p>
<p>“She doesn’t want out,” Konstantin huffed, pushing back from the table and crossing his arms over his chest. He had a certain flair to his movements as well, and Eve was starting to understand why Villanelle liked him so much. “This week, she wants out. Next week, she is killing a fruit stand vendor on a beach. She is fickle; very dramatic, romantic—you know this.”</p>
<p>Eve nodded, even if she didn’t agree with the assessment in its entirety.</p>
<p>“She wants to ride off into the sunset with you.”</p>
<p>“Not very pretty sunsets in London,” Eve acquiesced. “South America, though… she could start over. Your kid isn’t even eighteen. Come back for her when she’s an adult.”</p>
<p>“No,” Konstantin shook his head. “Irina is—listen, we do not need another Villanelle on our hands.”</p>
<p>“… shit.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” he nodded. “She is a shit.”</p>
<p>“But six million, come on,” Eve said. “It’s more than enough to get all three of you out.”</p>
<p>“It is not so simple.”</p>
<p>“Make it simple, then,” Eve insisted. “She forged me a passport in an hour, Konstantin. Book a bunch of flights and buses and trains and help her disappear.”</p>
<p>“Why? Why is she doing this, now?”</p>
<p>“Because you’re leaving her. You’re all she has.”</p>
<p>“You and I both know that’s not true.”</p>
<p>“I’ve already made my bed. You said it yourself, I’m going to be dead soon,” Eve said, and just the words out loud made her want to reach for another cigarette. Not cry. Just smoke. Burn every bad part of herself away. “You're it.”</p>
<p>Konstantin was silent for a long moment, but he eventually pulled Dasha’s photograph back across the table. “Are you in love with her?”</p>
<p>What a question.</p>
<p>One that she certainly couldn’t answer without a cigarette, so she extracted another and patted herself down in search of her lighter. “I don’t know,” she said, popping it between her lips and flicking the lighter wheel twice before the flame caught. A drag, a release, and an exhale. “Probably.”</p>
<p>Konstantin frowned, then pushed back from the table and stood. “I gave you warning, because she would want me to. I did this for her, and you do not care.”</p>
<p>“What more can I do?”</p>
<p>“She does not have many people, Eve.”</p>
<p>“Neither do I.”</p>
<p>“You have her. You have her wrapped round your little finger.”</p>
<p>Breathe, inhale, burn, exhale.</p>
<p>
  <em> What do I smell of to you, Eve? </em>
</p>
<p>Eve knew.</p>
<p>
  <em> Power. </em>
</p>
<p>“Kenny?” she asked instead.</p>
<p>Konstantin's lips quirked at the edges, but they both knew they were finished.</p>
<p>“You know it doesn’t matter, now,” she said.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“If you did kill him,” Eve explained. “It doesn’t matter because you’ve got the money to get her out. It’s your leverage.”</p>
<p>“Is only leverage in regards to her,” he said. “Carolyn does not care about her. She would arrest me and throw my family to the dogs. So... my money and my plans are for the people who want what is good for her. People who love her. Is that you, Eve?”</p>
<p>She could try to argue with him, but there was nothing there. She watched Konstantin rise and walk away, no anti-climactic pause at the exit, no final warning, no advice regarding his special charge. Just a departure. And with him, a sense of her priorities finally slotting into place. Some tongue-in-groove connection, that click of recognition, and the power that came with knowing exactly what she wanted.</p>
<p>Eve balled up her apron and followed him out, not even checking up at the door.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>please note i am not european i am making up election rules for the EU stuff just roll with it :D</p>
<p>thank you so much to everyone who's been reading. drop a line if you want or tell your fandom friends who want more Dark!Eve about the story! I love writing her so much and want to get the voices right</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hope y'all enjoy</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They found Eve three days later, as she was waiting by the bus after another long day at the Bitter Pill offices. Her focus had shifted, again, toward the Twelve’s invisible hand and its sway in upcoming power changes in the next election cycle. As one country phased out of command, another replaced it, and so on…</p>
<p>So Eve had begrudgingly turned her mind to modern European politics, which was certainly less interesting than murder. And yet somehow, the latter shaped so much of the former.</p>
<p>“Eve Polastri?”</p>
<p>Eve tore her eyes off of her phone screen and looked to the girl who was standing beside her at the stop for the 109. She was dressed in grays and blacks, very… London, if Eve had to place it. Her fringe was blunt and her skin was smooth and she had that inaccessible look in her eye that Eve had once found so fascinating, blank and empty and wild with its intensity.</p>
<p>Curious, Eve thought, and she felt her fingers tingle.</p>
<p>Maybe she was afraid.</p>
<p>“That’s not your bus,” she said, taking Eve’s elbow and guiding her out of the mass of people congregating near the stop. She released her once they were through the crowd, and indicated a black cab idling in the parking lane.</p>
<p>“Couldn’t you just get on with it?” Eve asked. Something so public would have to be quick, and that’s what she’d come to hope for once her visit with Konstantin had concluded. There was no way of knowing if it would be painless, but quick… that would be a small blessing.</p>
<p>Villanelle would know how to do it for her.</p>
<p>“Get in the cab.”</p>
<p>They drove through awful end-of-day traffic for nearly thirty minutes. Eve supposed it was a tactic, something to sweat her out, before the inevitable end of it all. But the girl let her keep her phone, so she kept scrolling; she hovered over Villanelle’s number so many times with her thumb but couldn’t find the wherewithal to send a final message.</p>
<p>She had to give the girl more credit. Even if Eve hadn’t actually talked about her feelings (<em>gross</em>), she didn’t want her last communication with Villanelle to be a string of incoherent ramblings about things she already knew.</p>
<p>
  <em> You really fucked up my life, you know that? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Sometimes I think about how pretty you are, and it makes me irrationally mad. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I loved those flowers, and the perfume, and the dress. Sorry we got it all wet. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> What’s the weirdest way you ever killed somebody? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Is your favorite color pink? Kinda feels like it would be. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I almost pushed a guy off a train platform, once. He ran into me like an asshole and I just wanted to… do something about it. Squish. Right on the rails. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Your clothes are fucking ridiculous and not all of them work for you, so don’t get too cocky. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I love you, you total asshole.<br/></em>
</p>
<p>Instead of texting, she just forwarded a bunch of emails to Bear and cc’d Jamie, grouping them all under the subject “Back-up Files.” Not that they couldn’t just hack into her email in the event that she did wind up dead, but it would save them a lot of trouble.</p>
<p>The cab eventually pulled into a circle drive at the back of a swanky-looking hotel, which… well, not quite what Eve was expecting. A warehouse, or the docks, or something more sinister than valets with bowties.</p>
<p>“Out,” said the girl.</p>
<p>Eve followed her through the lobby to the hotel bar, and it was the kind of ritzy atmosphere that always made Eve feel out-of-place. She was led to the end of an empty cluster of barstools, too early for dinner and too expensive for any people who actually lived in the area to hit up the happy hour. A young gentleman in a red vest pushed a triangular cocktail glass across the bar to the only person seated before him, a middle-aged woman with sleek brown hair and perfectly manicured nails.</p>
<p>“What can I get you?”</p>
<p>“Gin,” Eve said, forgoing the mixer. If she was going out, she was going out buzzed.</p>
<p>“No. White wine, Phillip,” the woman to her right said, and Eve wanted to slap her.</p>
<p>
  <em> She hated white wine. </em>
</p>
<p>“I need you marginally sober for this,” the woman said.</p>
<p>Her accent was all over the place, her emphasis on certain English syllables even more difficult to follow than Villanelle’s. Though to be fair, Eve had been dreaming of lilting, Russian-tinged English for months upon months. Meanwhile, this woman spoke in staccato bursts, and simultaneously looked like Carolyn’s long-lost cousin— extremely put together and very European, with tailored slacks, expensive footwear, and a beautifully cut olive blouse. Topped off with a knotted ascot at her throat for flair, Eve felt woefully out of her depth in her parka and purple beanie.</p>
<p>“Can I at least have red wine?” Eve asked, her eyes bouncing between the bartender and the woman at her right. She’d lost track of the younger brunette once they’d made their way into the bar, but Eve had a feeling she was hovering just out of sight.</p>
<p>The woman tilted her chin down toward poor Phillip, who took his cues immediately. She sipped her dirty martini and pulled one of the olives off of the pick with her bright white teeth, then placed the glass back on a cocktail napkin before her. Her fingers spread wide and tense over the bottom half of the stem, and Eve wondered if those fingers had choked the life out of anyone, or slipped poison into drinks, or wielded daggers with any degree of proficiency. She seemed rather invested in the quality of her martini, so Eve turned her attention back to Phillip.</p>
<p>“Thanks,” she said, when he slid the merlot her way.</p>
<p>
  <em> Not a heavy pourer, then. </em>
</p>
<p>She swished it about in her glass and took a sip, her lips puckering because that… was not wine she could pick up for ten quid at the off-license. Like she’d said to Villanelle, back in her kitchen in Barcelona, she couldn’t really tell the difference.</p>
<p>Fuck it, Eve thought, for about the millionth time that week. You only live once, and possibly, only for another half hour. She took another swallow instead of gulping it down because she didn’t want to piss off ascot lady, but the silence was getting to her.</p>
<p>“Can I, uh… help you?” she ventured.</p>
<p>Ascot lady smiled. “I think you can, Eve.”</p>
<p>“And who are you, exactly?” she asked, tilting her head curiously. “Nice ascot.”</p>
<p>Ascot-lady’s lips quirked at the edges, a little thrown, but the majority of her face remained extremely neutral. Eve was rather bored with all of these assassins being so cool and collected; every time she’d killed someone it had taken a helluva lot of effort, and she certainly wasn’t placid about it. But then again, it wasn’t exactly her normal, and intimidation not really her forte, so she tried not to take it too personally.</p>
<p>“Merci,” the woman said, taking another sip of her martini. “You may call me twenty-two.”</p>
<p>“There’s more than a dozen of you?” Eve asked, doing her best to hold back a sarcastic laugh. “Come on, I don’t care if it’s not your real name.”</p>
<p>“I am Hélène.”</p>
<p>“And your friend?” Eve asked, twisting her head about to try to find her. There were others in the room, but she seemed to have stepped away or blended in so well Eve couldn’t place eyes on her. She was… the exact opposite of Villanelle.</p>
<p>“I’m more interested in your friend,” Hélène said. “Villanelle.”</p>
<p><em>Not my friend</em>, Eve wanted to say.</p>
<p>“She is very interesting,” Eve offered instead, turning to face imposing-European-murder-lady, very purposefully not reaching for her wine despite how much she wanted to. “Though I’m sure you’ve got the same dossier I have on her. Probably thicker, more detailed.”</p>
<p>“Yes, and yes,” Hélène said. “But you have… insight. Or at least the way to dig things out of her that we do not have. You are… inspiring.”</p>
<p>“Uhm… thanks?”</p>
<p>“We believe said insight could be helpful to our organization,” Hélène said, without an ounce of guile. “Your knowledge of our… assets, and our sub-contractors—you did investigate one of our better freelancers last year. We’ve been somewhat short-handed since her arrest.”</p>
<p>“The Ghost was yours?” Eve asked, her brows furrowing, her brain whizzing. “Wait—you guys contract out?”</p>
<p>“Sometimes,” Hélène said. “Depends on the job, location, budget… you know, boring details.”</p>
<p>“Sounds weirdly… corporate.”</p>
<p>“Ah, well,” Hélène said. “The modern world, no?”</p>
<p>“So you… don’t want to kill me?” Eve asked, because she had pretty much made peace with the fact that she was getting stabbed in the face at some point that evening. She was scared, she finally decided, but not the shit-her-pants kind of scared. More along the lines of didn’t-get-to-finish-what-she-started kind of scared, which was really more… regret. But maybe, just maybe, she’d have time to follow-up on that. “You’re… offering me a job?”</p>
<p>“An opportunity.”</p>
<p>“Like one of your contractors?”</p>
<p>“Not exactly. We find ourselves a little short on… handlers, at the moment.”</p>
<p>“Really,” Eve said knowingly, reaching for her wine and draining it in one go. She swiped at her mouth with the pad of her thumb and faced Hélène full-on. “Sorry about that.”</p>
<p>“You seem to be culling our staff. I thought perhaps you’d be excited about the job.”</p>
<p>“Excited to have supervisors who could decide to kill me at any point? Right, sure, makes sense—”</p>
<p>“I do not think you are understanding what I am offering you, Eve,” Hélène said. “You could have her, you know.”</p>
<p>
  <em> I already do. </em>
</p>
<p>“I do not understand why she responds to you like she does.” Hélène tapped the edge of her glass and it disappeared instantly. Phillip already had a shaker of ice in hand and was reaching for the vermouth. “A beautiful monster, our Villanelle.”</p>
<p>And with that, Eve knew she had some leverage—this woman didn’t know Villanelle at all.</p>
<p>“You would have others to look after, though,” Hélène explained. “But, with your MI6 background, you would be able to predict the pattern for impending investigation, guide our assets around any pitfalls.”</p>
<p>“So not just Villanelle, then,” Eve said. “You want me to handle… multiple assassins?”</p>
<p>“Assets, Eve. There is a terminology in the field, you see. Ah, merci, Phillip.” Hélène brought her second martini to her lips, and took a delicate sip. “You’ll have to burn it down, you know. Your… life. Not much there anymore, but… we will make up story.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You disappear. You die. Eve Polastri goes away.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“We provide the identities. We have packets, passports, I.D.’s—”</p>
<p>“No, I… I get it.” Eve tapped on the rim of her glass, mimicking Hélène, but Phillip paid her no mind. “Oh, come on!”</p>
<p>“We’ll give you new codename,” Hélène said.</p>
<p>“Can I be sixty-nine?” she mumbled.</p>
<p>“…this is not a <em>funny</em> job, Eve.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. Seems pretty damn funny to me. ‘Burn your life down, Eve.’ ‘Betray everything you’ve ever known, Eve.’ ‘Wrangle twenty-something killers for fancy cars and a lower mortgage, Eve’.”</p>
<p>“What other options do you have? Or do you enjoy pinching dumplings and sleeping on lumpy start-up sofas?”</p>
<p>Eve chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying not to look intimidated. “I enjoy knowing who I work for.”</p>
<p>“What? At MI6? Or your little… weblog, or whatever? You think you know who you work for?” Hélène turned away, and pressed the two speared olives off of her toothpick down into depths of her glass. “Maybe you and Villanelle are perfect for each other. She thought she knew us, too.”</p>
<p>“Until you gave her a handler who lied to keep her in check.”</p>
<p>“She’s killed two other handlers despite our warnings. Between you two, we’ve lost half our unit in the west.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think hiring me will solve your personnel issues. Maybe you should mandate some interdepartmental team building exercises through HR.”</p>
<p>Hélène cut her a look that could slice through glass. “You will solve our Villanelle issues,” she continued. “We need her working, and she is our best. She does her best when she is happy. You are not stupid, and you make her happy. Plus, you have managerial experience.”</p>
<p>“You should see my words-per-minute on an office doc.”</p>
<p>“Every time you joke about this,” Hélène said, rotating her toothpick, “it just makes me think of another way to kill you.”</p>
<p>“Humor’s a fairly common coping mechanism for people with nothing left to lose.”</p>
<p>Hélène acknowledged this statement with an affirmative hum, and they both turned to their drinks. Eve watched as Phillip polished a glass with a dishrag, but couldn't think of anything more to say. She knew the Twelve wouldn't take no for an answer, but it was... extremely hard to predict their next move without knowing more about them. All she could do was wait for the other shoe to drop.</p>
<p>“We could always kill her,” Hélène said, her lips curled over the rim of her glass.</p>
<p>The threat hit low in her gut, but Eve just huffed to cover it. A scoff, an eye-roll, and a longing look thrown at the wine behind the bar, even if Eve had finally identified the source of her fear… her regret.</p>
<p>
  <em> Oksana. </em>
</p>
<p>“Sorry, but that’s bullshit,” Eve argued. “You could kill her, or me, anytime. But you won’t. You just sat there and told me she’s your best asset. She’s done four kills in—what? Two weeks? Something tells me you’re on a schedule.”</p>
<p>Eve rummaged around in her pockets and felt a tiny tickle of glee when Hélène tensed beside her. She pulled out a bill and waved it over the bar. “Hey, Phil, you got anything up there for ten?”</p>
<p>Eve might as well have kicked his dog, given his reaction to the question.</p>
<p>“Literally begging you, dude,” Eve said, breathing a sigh of relief when Phillip stooped to retrieve a bottle from below the counter. It was a red blend, not the same as earlier, but if Eve was going to be having this conversation she was going to need more than a single glass of liquid courage. Phillip stared daggers at her as he twisted a corkscrew into the top and popped it to fill her glass. He passed her the drink, and Eve took a sip of that amazing cheap shit she’d been guzzling down every weekend since Rome.</p>
<p>“Listen, Hélène, right? Kill her or don’t," Eve bluffed, taking a long swallow to let her proposition settle. "It’s what happens almost every time I see her, anyway.”</p>
<p>“What are you talking about?”</p>
<p>“When I stabbed her?” Eve said, throwing down the last of her money. She still had the reserves from the joint account stashed in a shoebox under her bed, and hoped to God Hélène’s brunette friend hadn’t been sent back to her place to plant a bomb in the event that this little chat went south. “Last year?”</p>
<p>“You… you were the one who stabbed her? Villanelle?”</p>
<p>“In Paris, after the—oh,” Eve said, propping her arm over the back of the stool. “You really don’t keep tabs on her, do you?” Eve was utterly fascinated, trying to figure just how far the Twelve’s reach extended toward their employees—their so-called assets. “What if you’d let your best asset bleed out in a European ally? Seems like some company oversight is in order.”</p>
<p>Despite Eve’s levity, Hélène remained unphased. Chalk it up to years of murder and threats and extortion, or just, like, really good skin cream, because this lady radiated ice-queen nonchalance. She could even give Carolyn a run for her money.</p>
<p>“We have the video.”</p>
<p>Eve raised her brows in question, taking another gulp of cheap wine.</p>
<p>“From Barcelona.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Eve said, having almost forgotten about it.</p>
<p>“You were… outstandingly over-confident in that scenario.”</p>
<p>“To be honest, I wasn’t sure you’d find it,” Eve responded, her brain doing that thing again. Not MI6, then, that placed a hold on the video. Or maybe… it was MI6. Or Interpol. Either way, the Twelve had infiltrated one (or both) of the organizations, and were going to hold that tape over her head like a guillotine.</p>
<p>“And yet it got to us all the same,” Hélène said. “It did provide some humor in the board room, but I am not one for insubordination. You flip me off and I will put a bullet through your skull.”</p>
<p>“Seems harsh when you’re the one coming to me.”</p>
<p>“What other choice do you have?” Hélène asked her, and Eve really couldn’t argue with the logic.</p>
<p>The way she saw it, she had three options.</p>
<p>Option one) Walk away, chance that the Twelve hand over the tape to various local authorities, learn enough Spanish to act as a runner instead of someone’s bitch in a Catalan women’s prison.</p>
<p>Option two) Walk away, chance that the Twelve don’t release the video, and get by on spicy ramen and cheap wine and zero money in the Bitter Pill offices with Jamie and Bear, ultimately hitting more road blocks than normal in an investigation without the help of MI6.</p>
<p>Option three) Accept the offer.</p>
<p>Option four loomed in the back of her head: bullet through her skull (but she didn’t want to dwell on that one).</p>
<p>“So… not that I’m saying yes, but if I did, what would—<em>handling</em>—entail?”</p>
<p>“Four assets, each located in a different city in Western Europe. Occasionally we get into the Eastern Bloc, but it depends on the job. Arranging some travel, some surveillance, observation, reporting—very similar to your MI6 work.”</p>
<p>All of which would be extremely useful information for Eve to have, to figure out what the fuck the bastards were up to.</p>
<p>“Listen, I—you obviously know I got… really roped into this with Villanelle, but that took a toll on some… uh… personal things.” Eve stared at her glass and found that uncertainty, not exactly sorrow for Niko, for the house they’d invested in, the little unremarkable life they’d built. And if a tear came to her eye so Hélène would see it, well... Eve was certain a woman with the Twelve had worked with enough sociopaths to recognize manipulation, but for all Eve knew, Hélène might've thought Eve was still a decent person. “And I’m not exactly financially able to just—jet off to a bunch of places.”</p>
<p>“Travel expenses accounted for.”</p>
<p>“Housing?”</p>
<p>“Base location provided.”</p>
<p>“Uh…” How exactly was she supposed to negotiate this? “Compensation?”</p>
<p>“More than adequate.”</p>
<p>“Right, sure, uhm, I just—” Eve huffed, weighing her morality over a cheap-ass red-blend. “I was like… a good guy, you know—”</p>
<p>Hélène sighed, and it was that kind of bone-tired, world-weary exaggeration that Villanelle would express when feeling put-upon. “…what do you want, then?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“What do you want?” she asked again. “More money? Travel? Entertainment?”</p>
<p>“Just because I stabbed her doesn’t mean I <em>am</em> her.”</p>
<p>“Then what?” Hélène continued. “You could be good for us, Eve. It takes a special person to kill, but it takes a better person to pull strings.”</p>
<p>Eve sipped her wine and tapped her finger against the bar. What did she want?</p>
<p>“…I want a term limit.”</p>
<p>“A what?”</p>
<p>“I want to be able to walk away.”</p>
<p>“That’s… that’s not usually how—“</p>
<p>“Withhold what you need to withhold from me so that I can still get your minions to do the job, but I don’t want you following me once it’s done. I want to be done with her, and you, and all the stupid, meaningless death that follows. I want a year-long contract, max, and then I want to go back to Connecticut.”</p>
<p>“I told you, Eve Polastri—“</p>
<p>“Yeah, burned to death from her bad decisions and arose like some assassin-Phoenix out of Pompeii, I get it. Just send me back to the states and drop me in bum-fuck Nebraska or something, and I’ll take it from there. I’ll probably off myself by the time it’s all over.”</p>
<p>“You’ll need to undergo a physical… and see a therapist.”</p>
<p>“Whoopie.”</p>
<p>“For someone who calls herself a Phoenix, you are quite defeatist.”</p>
<p>“It was just an expression.”</p>
<p>“No… I like it,” Hélène said, smirking. “Codename, Phoenix.”</p>
<p>“Ugh, seriously?”</p>
<p>“It’s poetic,” Hélène said. “Like your charge. To see if you are serious… here is her first assignment.”</p>
<p>Hélène passed a postcard across the table, Big Ben in the background, <em>K.V.</em> initials written in bold, sloping cursive.</p>
<p>Eve almost guffawed, because <em>of course it would be him. </em>“Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me.”</p>
<p>“Do you think this is an easy job, Eve?”</p>
<p>“I think, again, if she’s killed as many handlers as you say she has, offing one more isn’t going to do you any favors.”</p>
<p>“Well, we hired you, didn’t we? Seems like we’re balancing numbers.” Hélène rose from the high chair at the bar and began to slip on her coat. “Phillip, charge them to the room, please. Eve, expect to hear from us soon.”</p>
<p>“Can’t wait,” Eve said, draining her wine in three quick gulps. Poor Phillip looked on the brink of an aneurysm.</p>
<p>Catching her stare in the reflection of the mirror behind the bar, Eve tracked the brunette as she followed Hélène onto the windy street beyond. If Eve was going to be responsible for kids like that… boy, did she have her work cut out for her.</p>
<p>“Can I get that tenner back?” Eve asked, but Phillip simply pointed out the door. “Right, I’m just gonna…” Eve hopped off the chair and made her way out of the bar, hoping to God she hadn’t just signed her own death warrant.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Eve marched into a cafe in London, like any of the millions of other cafes in London, on a dull day nearing winter, grey and wet and plain. Except Eve still found it cozy, despite its ordinary atmosphere. She could never quite recreate that hygge-ish feeling of stepping out of the uncomfortable open air into the warmth of a public space smelling of fresh bakes and ground coffee. It was an easy meeting spot, very much in public, but somewhere that they wouldn’t likely be overheard.</p>
<p>Villanelle was already at a back table, where the message said she’d be.</p>
<p>Villanelle looked stupidly stunning for such a monochrome backdrop. Eve wondered if she'd ever be used to Villanelle's flamboyance, given what could happen in the upcoming weeks... months.. god, could they really be together longer than that without killing each other?</p>
<p>Eve tried not to dwell.</p>
<p>She had some time before the scheduled sit-down, and took five seconds in her head to recognize she might want something to do with her hands other than wring them before her as her diminishing confidence got the better of her nerve, so up the queue she went. It was only 14:30, and the after-lunch crowd was sparse. She ordered a flat white and wheat wrap because she swore to herself that she’d start making marginally healthier choices after the hellish physical fitness test, though her follow-through on said promise would probably waiver depending on Villanelle’s reaction to her showing up.</p>
<p>Villanelle was gazing at her when she looked up from the till, and Eve managed to indicate her table and thank the girl behind the counter while sparing eye contact with Villanelle across the cafe. She smiled and waved, unable to help herself, then squeezed between chairs pushed underneath tables and stools crowded around window bars.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Eve mumbled, as her oversized parka grazed the back of a couple canoodling over hot chocolates. She veered into a chair that hadn’t quite been pushed back all the way and had to muffle a curse.</p>
<p>“Eve.”</p>
<p>“Hey,” she said, a little flustered, pulling out the chair across from Villanelle and slinging her things in place over the back of it. She held out a plastic bottle. “Do you, uh, need a water? Your flight must’ve just gotten in—”</p>
<p>Villanelle’s mouth was slightly agape, her eyes wide and confused.</p>
<p>“What are you—what do you know about my flight?”</p>
<p>“Well, I mean… you weren’t here, and now you are?” Eve said, pushing the water bottle across the table towards her as she plopped down. Eve noted the empty cup, saucer, and soup bowl at the corner of the table on Villanelle’s side, and wondered if she came straight to the meet-up spot from the airport. Tight turn-around with international travel and jobs, nowadays. Or else she would’ve ordered something heartier. Villanelle was not one to peck at her food.</p>
<p>“What are you doing here?” Villanelle asked.</p>
<p>“Okay, well that’s uhm—you see, there’s this—oh, thanks!” Eve said, as a waiter slid her plate and coffee in front of her, and asked if she needed anything else. “I’m good, thanks.”</p>
<p>“Miss, are you finished?” he asked Villanelle, who handed over her own plate.</p>
<p>“They’ve got German chocolate cake,” Eve mentioned before the waiter could follow up, but Villanelle seemed intrigued.</p>
<p>“I guess I’ll have that,” she said.</p>
<p>“Yes, miss.”</p>
<p>“How are you?” Eve ventured, trying to get a read just from a cursory first exchange. Villanelle didn’t look tired this time, which was nice. Dressed in a smart emerald green suit, bold and brash, she looked ever the runway professional. He hair was halfway up, soft and straight, and Eve remembered her fingers slipping through the strands on her last night in Barcelona.</p>
<p>“I’m… fine,” she said, still puzzled, which… Eve couldn’t really blame her.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Eve said, trying to summon her courage. “Don’t be mad.”</p>
<p>Villanelle’s expression grew dark. “Why are you bribing me with cake?”</p>
<p>“I just… uhm,” Eve stumbled, trying to remember how she practiced this. “I need you to not get mad.”</p>
<p>“The more you say that, the more likely I am to think that whatever you’re about to tell me will make me mad.”</p>
<p>Eve did not want a cigarette, she told her brain, even though the monkey on her back was screeching for nicotine at the moment. She tried to distract herself by rummaging around in her bag. “Okay, so, there’s—”</p>
<p>“You know what? No,” Villanelle said, physically holding up her hand to stop Eve. “I want to talk first. The last time we spoke, your tongue was halfway down my throat. A girl expects a call.”</p>
<p>The poor waiter stood overlooking the pair of them, pretending to find the sponge of the chocolate cake far more interesting than the statement that had just flown from Villanelle’s lips.</p>
<p>“Look!” Eve said, too loudly. “Cake’s here.”</p>
<p>“Great, thank you,” Villanelle said, glaring at the waiter until he scurried away.</p>
<p>Eve tried to backtrack: “Right, well you see, that’s what I was going to—uhm—I was a little busy.”</p>
<p>“Too busy to text?”</p>
<p>Eve grumbled: “You told me not to contact you on my phone.”</p>
<p>“I also told you to get a burner phone!”</p>
<p>“I got… wrapped up in… things.”</p>
<p>“It’s been over a week,” Villanelle pouted, her expression softening somewhat. “I was worried.”</p>
<p>Eve bit her lip, and clenched her fists together in her lap. She would not smile, nor would she reach across the table and take Villanelle's hand. She’d left those tender moments in Barcelona, and needed to give Villanelle her options before she got so… gross and sappy about it. Besides, they’d gone without seeing each other for literal months while Eve was “dead,” so if Villanelle had missed her, well that was just… what it was, then.</p>
<p>“I <em>am</em> worried,” Villanelle amended, her eyes flitting toward the door and back. “You should not be here. I am working.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Eve said.</p>
<p>“What do you mean, ‘you know’?”</p>
<p>“This is the part where I repeat—don’t be mad.”</p>
<p>“<em>Eve</em>.”</p>
<p>Eve took the postcard out of her bag, and slid it across the table.</p>
<p>
  <em>K.V.</em>
</p>
<p>Big Ben and Parliament in the background, a red bus in the bottom corner.</p>
<p>
  <em>God, had all of this really started with a bus?</em>
</p>
<p>Villanelle stared down at the postcard, then back up at Eve, her jaw working, tight and tense. Her fingers were steady when she picked up the card and flipped to the back, but it was blank, save for the address to Konstantin’s London flat.</p>
<p>“This is a joke.”</p>
<p>“I would not joke about this,” Eve said.</p>
<p>“Why the fuck do you have this?” Villanelle asked, her voice low and wet-sounding.</p>
<p>“Because I’m your handler, now.”</p>
<p>She almost wished she could take it back, because Villanelle didn’t hide herself—didn’t hide <em>Oksana</em> from Eve anymore. Which meant Eve had to bear witness to the tide of feelings washing over cheeks and lips and lashes and nostrils and chin and carotid, as if the features in front of her could be schooled into anything that didn’t ultimately amount to betrayal. Hopeless wasn’t a sad enough word… doomed, maybe, like Villanelle had stumbled into something she’d never intended to get into, and yet here she was, down to half a heart and barely functioning with what remained.</p>
<p>“The cake’s good, I’ve had it here before,” Eve tried, as Villanelle's wet eyes spilled over. Eve felt her own throat get tight and hot. “Will you let me explain?”</p>
<p>“Quickly,” she whispered.</p>
<p>“You know Hélène?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“She approached me with an offer,” Eve wrapped her hands around the warm mug, afraid of fidgeting too much. Wasn’t she supposed to be the one in charge now? “Approached is… too nice. Strong-armed… threatened, really—”</p>
<p>“Get on with it.”</p>
<p>“They’ve got the CCTV of me killing Dasha,” Eve murmured, cushioning the explanation with a bit of blackmail. “Infiltrated either Interpol or MI6, I haven’t quite worked that bit out yet, but…” Eve took a sip of her coffee, then reached across the table. Damn the sappy and emotional sympathies to hell, Villanelle was crying for real and it was her fault. “Hey, come on.”</p>
<p>“Why are you doing this?” Villanelle asked, retreating, crossing her arms over her chest, her chocolate cake untouched.</p>
<p>“Because I’m trying to get you <em>out</em>, okay?” Eve said, dropping her voice a bit.</p>
<p>She was never quite sure if she was being followed; and, she’d actually invested in one of those burner phones Villanelle had suggested, but even getting into the beginnings of working with the Twelve was just… a lot. She never made calls in her apartment and took different bus routes to Carolyn's to cover her tracks. Made extra blocks so she couldn’t be tracked so easily. No wonder Konstantin was on the brink of a heart attack.</p>
<p>It was, frankly, fucking exhausting.</p>
<p>“Eve,” Villanelle closed her eyes for a second and exhaled, clearly exasperated. “What? Just… what?”</p>
<p>“Listen, I know I’m not the best liar, but apparently they like the whole—hapless assassin obsession I’ve got going on,” Eve said, poking her wheat wrap with her fork. She was going to have to lie, regularly, to Hélène in her tailored suits and silly ascot and she was going to have to just act like herself. And despite how quickly her brain worked, she knew, from Carolyn’s stares, Kenny’s reprimands, Jamie’s surprise, and Bill's nail-on-the-head assessments, that she emitted this laser-focused cluelessness when she got on an investigative roll. She only hoped that she could put said cluelessness to use and not get murdered in the process. She steeled herself: “I’m reporting back to MI6 and we’re going to take them down.”</p>
<p>“You…” Villanelle began, angry expression morphing into outright incredulity. “You are going in as a double agent?”</p>
<p>“Well when you say it like that—”</p>
<p>“You are going to get yourself fucking killed.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, it was either get killed now or get killed later, so…”</p>
<p>“I said you could come with me!” Villanelle argued.</p>
<p>“No, then they’d know we were running together,” Eve said. “They’d know in an instant and we’d always be looking over our shoulders. What kind of life is that?”</p>
<p>“One where we don’t have to kill anybody anymore!”</p>
<p>Eve brought the heels of her hands to her eye sockets, and pressed. Looked around. Felt the pressure of working with secrets sink down on her shoulders like Atlas with his load.</p>
<p>She really, <em>really</em> wanted a cigarette.</p>
<p>“You said yourself that it would take time to get the money. Even more time if I went with you. If I can’t make any progress with MI6 then at least I’ve bought you time to make arrangements. Or, we can go with our second option.”</p>
<p>“And what the hell is that?”</p>
<p>“You go. With Konstantin. We fake his death, so you’ve done the job. But if Hélène asks, it was too much for you. He’s been your handler for a long time, and they know you like him. Maybe that’s what pushes you over the edge.” Eve mimes some gory ending with finger guns at her temple and blood spatter out the other side, and Villanelle just looks flabbergasted.</p>
<p>“Shit, what are you—”</p>
<p>“You’re both ‘dead’,” Eve said, with unnecessary air quotes.</p>
<p>“I got it,” Villanelle snapped. “Where does that leave you?”</p>
<p>“What? What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“You are going to… what? Take down the Twelve by yourself?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know!” Eve said, hating that when someone else put it into words it sounded so fucking batshit. Carolyn had a way of indulging in her ideas that made her sound semi-sensible, but she should’ve known better, after Rome. “Carolyn is going to help. And you’ll be safe, okay? That’s what matters.”</p>
<p>“What about you?”</p>
<p>“What about me?”</p>
<p>“<em>I love you</em>.”</p>
<p>“I know!”</p>
<p>“Then do not do this,” Villanelle begged, finally taking Eve’s hand in both of her own, leaning so far across the table the lapels of her suit were almost dipping in the chocolate. “Their network… they are too strong, too many… I knew it when Carolyn wanted me to do it and I know it now. It is not possible.”</p>
<p>“Wait, Carolyn?” Eve asked, gripping harder into Villanelle’s hands. “When did—”</p>
<p>“Do you remember, when I was in the prison in Russia?” Villanelle said, leaning back from her perch over the table. “You tried to see me. Talked to… Anna.”</p>
<p>“Vividly.”</p>
<p>“Carolyn offered me work,” Villanelle said, eyes wide and glistening. “To double against the Twelve. I refused. It is a suicide mission.”</p>
<p>Eve’s brain was on fucking fire. With Villanelle and Carolyn’s resources, Konstantin’s contacts if he’d agree to work with them, the Bitter Pill staff, and her own bull-headed determination, they might just—</p>
<p>“You didn’t have me, before,” Eve offered, feeling the salty wet pressure pool behind her own eyes. “You know you have me, don’t you? In… every way.”</p>
<p>“Eve—”</p>
<p>“You can still leave,” Eve insisted, gripping so hard onto Villanelle’s hands she wondered if her fingertips would turn blue. “All of this—if you wanted to. I wouldn’t force you into anything.”</p>
<p>“You are the only one.”</p>
<p>“Maybe I am special.”</p>
<p>“Always have been,” Villanelle said, allowing her head to drop back as she retreated, released their hands, slumping into the back of the chair and heaving the most exhausted breath Eve had heard since she’d finished her initial interview with Hélène. There was enough time in the pause for Eve to take a bite of her wheat wrap, despite how not-hungry she was after all of that. It was something to do with her mouth, instead of leaping across the table, straddling the poor assassin, and kissing her senseless.</p>
<p>“You know I’ve arranged so you don’t have to kill him, right?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“It’s all going to be faked,” Eve said, poking at wilted lettuce with her cutlery. “Kenny’s girlfriend has some actor friends still at university. Uniforms, a stretcher, damn ambulance contact and everything.”</p>
<p>“You’re going… to try to trick them?”</p>
<p>“You got a better idea, or do you want him dead?”</p>
<p>“No,” Villanelle insisted. “It’s just… elaborate.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I’m sorry. I couldn’t see you, I was blinded by all the neon pink pig shit and stomach-gutting in Amsterdam.”</p>
<p>“So you did get my postcard!”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“My postcard, from Amsterdam!” Villanelle said, her tone immediately elevated from depressed to ecstatic. Eve needed a damn pogo-stick to keep up.</p>
<p>“Uh, no, I never got a postcard.”</p>
<p>“Big dark painting, two brother sliced from the navel up?”</p>
<p>“No, not quite,” Eve repeated, offering a smile despite Villanelle’s explicit Hannibal narrative.</p>
<p>“I wrote you a postcard,” Villanelle said, picking up her fork and scooping up a bite of cake. “Sent it to MI6. You should have gotten it. I… thought you would come to Amsterdam.”</p>
<p>“I guess they didn't want me focusing on you,” Eve said, interested in this new anecdote. Villanelle had been thinking about her while Eve was on the Ghost case. It made Eve's insides feel warm. <em>Jealous</em>, she thought. “If I had gotten a postcard, I might have…”</p>
<p>“You didn’t forget about me.”</p>
<p>“Seriously? How could I?” Eve said. “You won’t fucking let me. I told you—I think about… everything, with you.”</p>
<p>“Everything?”</p>
<p>“I mean—”</p>
<p>“Like if I got this chocolate cake bagged for takeaway, and we went back to my hotel, you would let me eat it off your body?”</p>
<p>“Christ,” said the waiter, who pivoted on his heel and retreated with a water pitcher.</p>
<p>“Sometimes people are too good at their job!” Villanelle called after him. “And can we have a box?!”</p>
<p>“What is <em>up</em> with you harassing service industry workers?!” Eve tried to be exasperated, and embarrassed, and put-out, but all she could do was smile.</p>
<p>Villanelle turned back to her, grin so bright and mischievous Eve could barely keep from reaching for her. “We’re going to do this, aren’t we?”</p>
<p>“The take-away thing, or—”</p>
<p>“The doubling-against-the-Twelve thing.”</p>
<p>That’s what Eve was hoping for, wasn’t it? To get out of all the murder, and the crazy, and the adrenaline cranked to 100 plus percent, and Villanelle staring at her like she was on the menu. The last bit wasn’t so unappealing anymore, but… was this what she wanted? Was this the hill she would, quite literally, die on?</p>
<p>“I think so,” she said, nodding her affirmation.</p>
<p>“Okay, then,” Villanelle agreed.</p>
<p>Ten minutes and one generous tip later, the pair of them were walking down the sidewalk toward the nearest bus stop. Villanelle stuck her hand above her head, a bright green line in an overcast sky. A cab stopped beside them, and Villanelle pulled Eve inside.</p>
<p>“Corinthia Hotel, please.”</p>
<p>“Is that where you’re staying?” Eve asked.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“And… I’m going because?”</p>
<p>“I want to make good on that promise about the chocolate cake,” Villanelle joked, waggling brows and tilted grin so very out of place in the back of the London cab.</p>
<p>Eve rolled her eyes hard, but it was the utterly annoying inappropriateness that made Villanelle so damn irresistible. Eve wouldn’t want her any other way.</p>
<p>“I… uhm…” Eve dropped her voice a little, wary of their history with public transport. “—you, too, you know?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“… love you.”</p>
<p>Villanelle nodded calmly and remained in her own seat, but she bent forward, and mumbled in the cab driver’s ear: “I’ll pay you 200 pound if you break every law you know and get us there in two minutes.”</p>
<p>Eve nearly had her first heart attack, first from the drive, then from the sequential orgasms. They ordered room service and champagne, then went back at it again for round two. Somewhere around midnight, Eve rose from the sheets while Oksana dozed, feeling charged by some unnameable power. She had successfully gotten away with murder, (somewhat) committed treason, and orchestrated one of the most elaborate schemes of her career, all within two short weeks. She’d also, inexplicably, fallen pretty damn hard for someone who'd committed more murders than Eve had solved. Oksana was naked and gorgeous in the hotel bed beside her, and they were going to work together with their respective contacts, poised to topple a network of criminal masterminds.</p>
<p>As it stood, her life was anything but boring.</p>
<p>Eve lit her cigarette by the cracked window and watched the smoke curl up into the air.</p>
<p>Codename: Phoenix.</p>
<p>
  <em>Rise, motherfucker.</em>
</p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thanks so much for reading through this piece, y'all! It was my first time with these characters in a larger-ish narrative (somewhat canon), so I'd love to know your thoughts overall</p>
<p>i'm on tumblr at @anonymississippi if you'd like to come yell at me about killing eve or send me some little prompts. can't wait to see the finale sunday!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Eve can be so savage and I want to see it!!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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